Courageous
by Dancingwiththesocks
Summary: A new emotion turns up at headquarters who is just your average female emotion. However after a few unexpected events all the emotions are put to the test.
1. It takes courage

**This is the second piece of chapter writing I have planned before Little Miracles, even before my other story Not too late but somehow it didn't feel right to publish until tonight!**

 **Just to note I will try to update this and Little miracles at least once a week or every two weeks depends what is going on and which story I am doing better with. However I won't give up on these stories or the other one I have yet to come.**

 **I hope you enjoy this first chapter and please tell me what you think as feedback is helpful, trust me!**

 **From Dancingwiththesocks.**

* * *

Riley's alarm clock went off at eight thirty that very morning. Yawning, rubbing her eyes and stretching she tossed her duvet from her bed and began to get dressed as quick as she could.

Meanwhile in headquarters Joy was running down the entrance to the emotions rooms, playing her accordion in the background, earning multiple groans from the other emotions.

"Another session of hockey practice on a Saturday morning , so very exciting!" Joy exclaimed before turning to Fear who jumped, causing all his papers to fly everywhere.

"Fear your job is too make sure Riley is kept on her toes, basically don't let her do anything silly"

"Way ahead of you there" Fear replied confidently.

In her rush of excitement Joy twirled around unaware of bumping into Anger who got knocked down to the floor who shouted out a "watch it!"

"Oops sorry Anger" Joy giggled lightly before helping him up. While brushing himself down Joy eagerly told him his job was to make Riley determined to make todays session an excellent one.

"Yeah yeah I know what I'm doing" Anger replied before walking off.

Joy's glowing body turned to Disgust in delight. "Disgust you're in charge of insuring that Riley looks her best today!"

The green emotion gave her an already got that covered look before proudly walking off.

"What's my job Joy?" Sadness asked, her usual glum tone often making Joy cringe.

"I have a special job for you, as you know I can be and I quote a bit pushy at times so I need you to make sure I don't go over the top with the positivity."

Sadness beamed at Joy's honesty. "Okay" the blue emotion agreed.

During the drive to the Hockey rink Joy gathered up the emotions to take their places in front of the console, ready to portray yet again another victorious hockey session.

Approaching the doors to the hockey rink Joy followed by the others enthusiastically cheered as through their girl's eyes they could see a majority of teammates who were also Riley's friends come up to her. One in particular called Samantha Jones or Sam for short was who Riley now considered as a best friend since the move. Her long straight jet black hair gently waved across Riley's shoulders as she was pulled into a friendly hug to which she accepted and hugged back.

"You ready for this?" Sam asked eagerly, her brown eyes twinkling with Joy.

"Yeah" Was Riley's simple reply, refusing to show the slight confusion from her best friends question.

The slight confusion was also shared with her fellow emotions inside headquarters.

"Er guys what does she mean by that?" Disgust asked in her normal fed up tone.

"I don't know" Joy began before adding "she's probably just excited, trust me I know the feeling!" the yellow emotion finished with a smile.

"The coach is speaking!" Fear exclaimed. The other emotions turned their attention to the coach, as well as keeping quiet t throughout the following minute to come.

"Right Foghorns as you know we have had quite a few successful hockey practices lately so I have a special treat in store"

The team gasped in surprise before starting to talk amongst themselves. Riley's emotions were also in debate of what the coach had in store for them.

"This treat better be a trip to the mall" Disgust said earning an irritated look from Anger who was stood next to her.

"Don't be ridiculous! He's probably just going to bore us of how well we've done" Anger growled out, scaring Fear.

"Maybe his 'treat' will be to push us to our limits and make us perform better than our best!" Fear wailed, his arms flapping with the panic pumping through him.

"That's bad" Sadness stated.

"Guys just calm down! I bet he's just going to give a short speech on how much he values our hard work, it's nothing to worry about."

"And because of the nonstop valued hard work and effort you guys put in my treat for you is that I have arranged a surprise hockey match to keep you on your toes" the coach explained joyfully. The hockey team just by their facial expression had mixed feelings about the situation.

"Are you kidding me! You can't do that mister!" Anger yelled producing a fist towards the console.

"He can't be serious right now" Disgust moaned, rolling her eyes grumpily.

"Why is he doing this to us?" Sadness groaned miserably.

"Noooooooo! Pretend we don't feel well!" Fear wailed shaking the yellow emotion before letting his long lavender arms frantically flap around in a massive panic.

Unknown until it was too late Fear had bashed into the rock hard red fist that belonged to Anger who was now grinning at his success.

Joy gave fear a sympathetic look before quietly thanking Anger.

"Anytime Joy" the red emotion replied mischievously.

With the panic temporally sorted Joy looked up to the screen to notice Sam talking in the background.

"Isn't this great, we're finally putting all our hard work into good use"

"Erm I guess it's pretty cool" Riley replied calmly, refusing to show that inside she was petrified.

However she wasn't the only one to share the fear.

" Sam, Riley look!" Francesca their friend whispered to them, pointing to the a dark haired girl who had it in a ponytail.

"That's Amber Martin, the top player of the Bulldogs team, apparently her team has won every match they have ever played and it's all down to her" Francesca continued to whisper, causing Riley's fear of losing to increase.

"Yeah right! Don't worry Riley she's just trying to scare us" Sam said confidently.

Riley sighed. Sometimes she wished she had Sam's unbelievably high level of courage.

In headquarters the emotions all began to worry for the outcome of today's hockey session, some more exposed to fear than others.

Before the emotions had time to think the coach blew his whistle. "Right Foghorns everyone into positions and play to the very best of your ability, I believe in you!"

"Come on gang let's do this!" Joy exclaimed, ignoring the others grumbles.

Riley and Amber came head to head, both in position to grab the puck. Suddenly the referee blew the whistle, unfortunately Amber was to quick resulting in her in possession of the puck. Riley sighed sadly at her loss.

"Oh great!" Anger grumbled from inside headquarters, looking as if he wanted to strangle the purple emotion shakily stood next to him.

As the game went on it was clear to the coach that his team were under pressure. So far it was only Sam who had been able to score the one goal which wasn't anything compared to the number of four goals scored by the opposition.

Meanwhile Riley was pretty much feeling the same way, she had tried to claim the puck off of the smashing Amber Martin multiple times without success. Even Sam the bravest person she knew had tried to tackle her once or twice however even she was forced to see the dark truth that Amber was a better player than her which was something Sam would never admit openly.

When the referee announced it was time for the break Riley miserably dragged herself off the ice, refusing to give anyone eye contact especially her parents who were sat in the crowd. In the distance Riley could see the smashing Amber Martin getting numerous amounts of high fives and compliments on her current performance, making a slight feeling of fear causing her to feel a little useless.

"Well that went brilliantly" Disgust said sarcastically , creating irritation within the red emotion.

"Don't you think we know that!" Anger yelled, stomping his foot as representation of how angry he was.

"Were going to fail" Sadness stated before slumping down onto the pink sofa.

"Your right!" Fear exclaimed pointing to Sadness before adding "if and dare I say when we loose the coach will be mad at us, so will our friends not to mention our parents!" No longer being able to control himself the purple emotion ended up running around headquarters wailing and flailing his long lavender arms around, which nearly hit Disgust who swished them away with a huff.

At this point it was only Joy who could resolve the currently horrible feeling of panic.

"It's not all bad gang we still have half the match to go and we could score a goal or too" Joy said, not managing to convince any of the others.

Anger mumbled something along the lines of Joy being too positive for her own good.

"Uh hello just in case you haven't noticed we are currently playing against one of the best under sixteens hockey players and you think we can win this. Get real Joy." Was Disgusts unhelpful response.

"Disgusts right Joy. Before the break she managed to whack us really hard in the leg in our attempt to get the puck, we could have been seriously hurt!" Fear exclaimed in fright.

"Our parents are going to watch us slide into the world of defeat" Sadness added.

Joy's patience was wearing thin as a result of the negative comments to match with the atmosphere in headquarters.

Before Joy could try again it was time for the second half of the match.

"One ticket to loserville here we come" Anger said which the other emotions tried hard to ignore.

Once the whistle blew the second half of the match began.

Riley took a deep breath before skating across near to where Sam was. As the rush to get the puck was getting busy Riley joined in with the mixed hockey players to get a her one and maybe even her only chance to get possession of the puck.

After seeing that Amber currently had the puck Riley felt an urge to leave her and see if Sam or one of the others could get the puck. Looking towards her left she had spoken too soon as she saw Sam desperately trying to get the puck off of Amber, however her mission was soon over as she was forcefully knocked on to the ground clutching her ankle.

"Sam!" Riley shouted before skating off towards her.

"Everyone stay back!" The first aider announced loudly while all the hockey players talked amongst themselves.

"What happened here?" the coach asked seriously.

"I just tumbled and hurt my ankle, I think I've twisted it" Sam explained before whimpering in pain.

A stomach turning feeling squirmed inside of Riley as she saw Amber in the distance sniggering with one of her teammates, Riley went unnoticed as she glared at her with hatred.

"We will show her, she does not mess with our mates!" Anger roared viciously, pretending to punch Amber in the face.

Raising the rage levers on the console Riley's glare became angrier by the minute.

Once Sam had been taken off the ice by the first aider and his assistant Riley was appalled by Amber who despite kicking Sam over on purpose was still allowed to play. Determined to snatch the puck off of her Riley wasted no time as the whistle blew to carry on with the game.

Racing through the ice rink wanting to catch up with the 'smashing' Amber Martin she was right where she wanted her as she was skating by her right side. All of a sudden an unexpected rush of courage filled her mood and with that Riley came up to Amber and taking a good swing for the puck. Succeeding with her missing Amber growled before chasing her, even though she was fully aware of Amber being a couple of skates behind her Riley resolved to skating faster towards the goal.

As the fear of losing the puck got to her Riley took this as an opportunity to show everyone what she was made of, taking her decision to give it her best shot she whacked her hockey sticks towards the puck which landed in the goal. Riley cheered and jumped for Joy, so did her team. On the other hand Amber snarled at her, Riley responded by sticking her tongue out at her as she was too proud to be nasty.

With just over three minutes of the match remaining Riley played at her very best before the match came to an end. Needless to say the Foghorns didn't win, however the coach didn't seem to mind as he was more proud of the excellent performance of teamwork he had witnessed.

"Great hustle everyone! I saw a great show of teamwork and courage within yourselves, today's session is over and have a nice rest of your weekend!" The coach cheered, letting the team members go off to find their parents. Riley's parents plus Sam were waiting in the crowd area, huge bright beaming smiles on their faces.

"Wow you nailed it out there Riley!" Sam praised, leaning over to hug her before wincing in pain having for a second forgotten about her twisted ankle.

"Well done we are so proud of you!" Jill said while Bill cheered "go Riley, our number one hockey star!"

Riley blushed at the amount of positivity.

Meanwhile In headquarters the emotions were also celebrating their girls glorious victory.

"Woohoo! So many compliments, we totally rocked this gang!" Joy shrilled before pulling everyone into a group hug.

Pulling away from the hug Sadness said "for once I'm crying for Joy." One teardrop from each eye rolled down her cheek despite her smile.

"We are awesome" Disgust commented with a smug smile.

"We sure are!" Anger added, high fiving Disgust in his happiness.

Suddenly a bright glow interrupted their victory as an unusual colored memory rolled through the tubes. One of two emotions raised an eyebrow at the weird colour the memory ball was, to their surprise it wasn't any old memory it was a core memory causing the emotions to have even more concerns.

Deciding to walk over to the core memory table each emotion stared at the new core memory, one or two maybe liking the new colour memory ball, others not so keen.

Sadness was the first to comment with "this colour looks interesting" along with forwarding her face to get a closer look at the new core memory.

Brushing her face away Disgust said "ugh I think you're confusing the word interesting with the word strange."

"Let me look at it!" Anger said before barging his way to the table and snatching the core memory out of its new slot. However another pair of unknown hands grabbed the memory at the same time causing Anger to drop it in horror.

"What the-!" Anger was about to yell when he saw the rolling memory being stopped by a pale creamy colored foot. As the memory was being picked up with just as pale hands all the emotions looked up to reveal a cream colored female with blonde hair in a bun along with having yellow eyes, a long sleeved pink top with a red skirt. On her blonde hair there was a small but noticeable pink flower hair clip keeping the bun together, she also owned a small silver heart necklace with a matching bracelet carefully placed on her neck and her left wrist.

Placing the cream colored core memory back onto the memory table the cream figure looked at the emotions as if she was expecting a welcome.

"Uh hello do I know you ?" Joy asked nervously despite being dragged back by Fear who was heavily trembling.

"No but you soon will" the cream figure replied before adding "my names Courage and I am here to give Riley confidence as I will be needed now she's a teenager."

Still recovering from the shock Joy took a step closer towards Courage, shoving Fears arm off her shoulder with a beam.

"I'm Joy" the yellow emotion introduced herself giving Courage a firm handshake.

"Nice to meet you Joy" Courage responded, then turning towards the green emotion.

"I'm Disgust" was all she said along with half a handshake before walking off. Courage sighed deeply.

"I'm Sadness" a low miserable voice said from behind her, Courage turned around to reveal the blue emotion looking at her. "Hello Sadness" Courage responded kindly.

On the other hand Anger who was stood a few steps away from the pale emotion stared at her as if she was a goddess. He took a deep breath, practically marching towards her.

"Anger " was all he said before letting out a small smirk.

"Hello Anger" Courage replied with a smile making Angers smirk wider.

Assuming she had met everyone Courage walked towards Joy. "So am I correct in assuming you're the leader here?" Courage asked.

Joy blushed at her question. "I suppose so, yeah" Joy replied shyly.

While most of the emotions were surrounding Joy and Courage Fear was hiding behind his bedroom door, unsure of the cream emotion who had just been a stranger less than five minutes ago. With his level of fright building up he accidentally knocked his head onto his door in a heap , creating a loud banging noise that made vibrations which could be felt through the floor.

Courage immediately followed the noise to Fears bedroom door, looking down at the heap of the purple emotion who was rubbing his head. Looking up he saw the pale figure just a couple of steps away from him, embarrassed to be found in this state Fear quickly got up and brushed himself down.

"Er… I'm.. I'm Fear" the purple emotion introduced himself despite from the corner of his eye seeing Disgust roll her eyes and Anger scowling.

"I see. And what were you doing behind there exactly?" Courage questioned raising an eyebrow as if he was a strange object, making Fear more nervous which caused him to shake more.

"Erm I was.. J-just er.." Hearing Fear struggle to come up with an excuse Joy said

"Sorry about this Courage he's just shy around new emotions, especially since we haven't had any in a long time."

"Ok" Courage replied before walking off towards the memory shelves.

Letting out a sigh of relief Fear whizzed off to his bedroom to do some research. Carefully sitting down at his purple desk he opened up a little lavender colored laptop that was perched in the middle for safe keeping. Opening the lid before lifting it up he was greeted by the bright screen that had been left on the google search webpage, he then frantically typed in the search bar ' what does courage mean?'

 _The ability to do something that frightens one; bravery._

Deciding he wanted to look deeper into the meaning Fear clicked off the webpage and got out his dictionary from his bookshelf.

 _Courage is the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger, or pain._

What the purple emotion found scared him, sending him into a shaking fit . Trying to calm himself down Fear glanced down the page which revealed a shocking discovery to his very eyes.

 _Opposites or Antonyms of Courage - Cowardice, timid, weak,_ _ **fear**_ _._

Fear's eyes widened at his name clearly written on the page, the word flashing out at him as if it were a blinding light.

"She's the opposite of me" Fear whimpered to himself in shock, making himself jump by slamming the dictionary shut in terror he could then hear voices in the distance.

Getting up to lean against the door he could hear Joy's cheery voice eagerly say "so guys what do you think of Courage?"

"I think she's nice" Sadness said, turning her head towards the yellow emotion.

"She could work on her fashion sense, I mean who wears a pink top and a red skirt together" Disgust said spitefully, her words irritating Anger.

"Oh who cares" I think she's great, it's about time Riley was more courageous in life!" Anger exclaimed with pride before looking up to Courage who stood a few steps away from them, twiddling with her necklace.

"Ugh just because you fancy her" Disgust mumbled earning a threatening scowl from the shorter emotion.

"I don't !" Anger snarled under his breath.

"You keep telling yourself that" Disgust retorted.

"Guys enough with the arguing and I think she's great too, she will certainly give Riley more confidence especially for events later in life such as exams!" Joy twirled around happily.

Having heard enough of his fellow emotions opinions it was time for his to be voiced. Fear quietly came out of his bedroom and walked towards the others, clearing his throat so they knew he was joining them.

"Oh hello Fear we were just talking about Courage, what do you think of her?" Joy asked politely.

Fear shook a little before answering, lowering his voice to make sure the pale emotion couldn't hear him. "If you ask me I don't like the sounds of this new emotion we haven't had one since the move to San Francisco and for it to all happen now is quite frankly well… freaky."

The other emotions all stared at him as if he was some strange animal.

"I don't know why you bothered asking him Joy! It's obvious he would find something about her petrifying in his ridiculously messed up mind" Anger jeered, pointing a stubby finger towards the purple emotion.

Fear then decided to support and stand up for himself and his opinion. "But less than an hour ago she was just a stranger who randomly turned up into headquarters without warning or any kind of notice, don't you think that sounds at all suspicious?" Fear almost wailed, frustration starting to bubble inside of the usually weak emotion.

"Look you idiot who cares what you think! Courage is here to stay you imbecile so get used to it!" Anger spat, walking up to Fear as if he was to punch him.

"Oh here we go again, lover boy to her rescue" Disgust said along with rolling her eyes.

Anger snarled back before turning his death stare onto Fear who's eyes began to water in terror of what the red emotion could do.

Fear sighed lightly, knowing he wasn't going to win he backed away not bothering to tell them what he found out in his dictionary.

Seeing how upset the purple emotion looked Joy was about to intervene when she heard a slight cough in the background. Looking up she saw the pale cream coloured emotion with one hand on her hip.

"Sorry to interrupt your little meeting but perhaps one of you could show me around the headquarters, it's just that I really want to get a good sense of how things work around here" Courage suggested.

"Er yeah sure, let me show you around!" Joy said happily, taking the pale emotions hand she and Anger who was now closely behind her walked off.

Feeling slightly withdrawn from the others Fear decided to have an early night, getting the impression that he wouldn't be needed for this evening. Dragging himself off to his bedroom he closed the door quietly, taking one last look at Courage before shutting the door until the vision of the pale emotion ceased.

Having flopped onto his bed Fear closed his eyes and laid back on to his soft light purple pillows , hoping tomorrow would be a disaster free day especially now there was a new emotion in headquarters.


	2. Fearless bravery

Having being assigned dream duty for the whole night Fear's yawn was cut short as he jolted at the sound of Riley's alarm clock going off , signalling for her to get up. A light shone through headquarters when the screen revealed Riley's surroundings as she woke up to another beautifully sunny morning.

As Riley stretched and yawned she rubbed her eyes before taking a trip to the bathroom. During that time, Fear heard Joy jump into action as she rushed out of her room in order to get everyone else up.

As the rest of the emotions emerged from their beds Fear eyes were glued on each emotions room, in particular Joy's room as since there were only five rooms in headquarters Joy had offered to share her room with Courage.

The purple emotion was snapped out of his thoughts when he was rudely shoved away by Disgust who angrily pointed out that she was needed to make Riley look her best.

The next emotion Fear was to see was Anger who had already got the mind reader in his red hands before plonking himself on the pink sofa, occasionally tilting his head up to glance at Joy's bedroom door as if he was waiting for someone.

Sadness who was usually the slowest one out of bed was the next one to show up, leaving a slight feeling of relief for Fear. Just then a positive thought entered Fear's significantly negative, overcrowded mind.

 _Maybe the reason why Courage hasn't made an appearance is because she now realises she isn't needed here, or even better she has been sent back to wherever she came from!_

Just as was beginning to let himself relax the purple emotion who had just taken a sip of his herbal tea, was spat across the floor when he saw the pale emotion step out of Joy's room looking around as if she was to pounce onto the console at any moment.

However, he wasn't the only one who had noticed her, Anger who by now had walked up to the pale emotion before greeting her with the mind reader still in his hand which Courage accepted.

Fear silently thanked Anger for his distraction, letting out a small sigh of temporary relief the purple emotion decided to take Anger's spot on the sofa, just watching Disgust and Joy who had joined her by the console. The skinny emotion couldn't help but keep looking over his shoulder, just in case Courage decided to bombard him with questions he was unable to answer.

As Riley was making her way to school all the emotion except Fear had made their way to the console ready for what today was to throw at them.

"What usually happens on a Monday?" Courage asked, her voice sending a shiver down Fear's spine.

"Firstly we have the weekly assembly then our first lesson is maths which is kind of a bore, we have our break before we have a double science lesson which can be interesting if you think about it, we then have our lunch break before English and Geography which we don't really pay much attention too."

While Joy was explaining what went on during the day Fear was slightly shaking on the pink sofa, his mind racing through all the potential disasters that could happen if someone as inexperienced as Courage touched the console.

Before he was even able to access his clipboard and pen he heard the school bell ring, signalling it was time for the first lesson. Fear straightened himself up before stepping a couple of spaces towards the others, silently reminding himself of all the scenarios that could happen.

As Riley was preparing herself for maths the teacher clapped her hands before telling the class to settle down.

"Right class before we begin we have a new student in class." the teacher announced before all eyes were turned on to a girl with brunette hair tied up in a ponytail. Her sudden arrival received loads of mumbled questions amongst the students including Riley and Sam.

"Who is she?" Sam said quietly.

"I don't know, she seems pretty cool" Riley replied causally.

"Do you think she will want to be friends with us?" Sam questioned, looking at Riley hopefully.

"Erm maybe" Riley responded with the same tone of voice, her memory playing back the embarrassing time she had cried when first starting at the school.

"She's remembering that awkward memory when we cried in front of all our classmates" Sadness stated, giving the other emotions a guilty look.

"It's ok Sadness the memory will take time for Riley to accept" Joy reassured, receiving a little smile from the blue emotion in return.

The emotions attention focused back onto the screen.

"Do you think she will want to join my Minecraft club?" another voice asked. Riley turned around to face her other friend Katrina who smiled at her.

"Er she might do" Riley answered nervously, avoiding having to tell her that it was unlikely she would join her club with only three members including Katrina herself.

"Ugh why would you ask that, does she look like as if she spends all her time on such a stupid game" Disgust moaned.

"Who is that?" the pale emotion asked curiously.

"That's Katrina" Disgust answered before grumpily adding "despite her geeky dress sense she has the intelligence of a fruit fly."

Courage winced at her insulting description before deciding to make her own judgement.

Before anyone else could say anything more the teacher then asked the new girl to tell the students something about herself, which caught the three girls attention.

"Hi I'm Shelly Jackson , I originally come from Toronto and I've moved here because we needed a bigger house."

"Do you have any hobbies?" the teacher asked, just as eager to know more about Shelly as Riley was.

"Ok, I am really into cheerleading and sports in general, along with hair and beauty as I do my eight year old sister's hair all the time."

At this point some of the class were already considering her as their friend, meanwhile, a whole load of thoughts were racing inside Riley's head.

"A new girl? She could be our friend guys!" Joy exclaimed with excitement, making Fear jump and Disgust groan.

"Get real Joy she has already gone to sit near those girls with the piercings" Disgust stated as she and the others saw Shelly make her way to her seat, with Riley and Sam going unnoticed.

Riley sighed while Sam rolled her eyes and whispered into Riley's ear "I knew that would happen."

Katrina made a disappointed sound before quietly admitting she would have appreciated a new member of her club, earning herself an eye roll from Sam and silence from Riley.

"Will you stop going on about your pathetic club! We have bigger issues here!" Anger yelled towards Katrina who was sorting out her glasses which gently brushed against her short mouse-coloured hair just before being able to open up her maths book.

"Forget about lame old Katrina, what about Shelly! We want her to like us" Disgust commented, her green eyes in contact with Joy's bright blue ones.

"I know, how about we talk to her after class" Joy suggested.

"Yeah but only if you let me do the talking as I still can't get over the last time you tried to socialise." Disgust complained causing Joy to blush with embarrassment.

"Oh please if you do it you're going to make Riley sound moody" Anger interrupted.

"What do you suggest genius?" Disgust replied sarcastically.

"Let courage do it" Anger responded sharply, focusing his gaze on Courage who gave the other emotions a questioning look.

"I guess it could work" Sadness stated genuinely, Courage smiled at her level of trust.

"It wouldn't hurt to try, you go for it Courage!" Joy cheered, slightly pushing Courage towards a set of levers before she made her own way to them with a confident smile.

"Okay." This time the pale emotion accepted before taking a deep breath and waited until maths had finished.

While all the fuss had been going on Fear had kept himself to himself, that was until he saw the alarming sight of Courage actually being allowed to use the console. When the school bell rang for break time Fears worries increased by the minute.

As soon as Riley made her way to the playground she saw Shelly in the distance sorting out her bag.

"Now's the time , make our move" Disgust hissed to Courage who nodded.

As Courage made her move towards the levers Fear's eyes widened as if a massively loud car alarm was playing inside his mind, with the possibilities of the numerous bad outcomes which were stuck in his head. Fear rushed towards the levers, dragging them down just as Courage was lifting them up.

This caused Riley to walk then stop halfway through her quest to talk to the new girl.

"What's going on?" Courage questioned before looking down at Fear who had a purple hand on the lever.

Before Courage could question his motives the purple emotion blurted out "I can't let you do it, the risks are too dangerous!" Fear exclaimed in fright.

Courage chuckled at his expense. "Fear there's nothing to worry about, it's all under control" the pale emotion explained before dragging the lever back up, making Riley walk closer to Shelly.

"Nooo!" Fear wailed, pulling the lever back down before stammering out "we can't go through with this, what if we say something lame then she might judge us!"

This time, Courage was less polite with her words. "Look I don't know why you're making such a fuss, nothing's going to go wrong now please let me do my job." Courage said, lightly swatting Fear's hand away from the lever.

Fear stared at her in disbelief, determined not to let her potentially mess things up for Riley.

Grabbing one side of the lever with Courage's hand on the other, the lever got pulled up and down repetitively ,causing Riley to walk forwards before panicking a little and taking a couple of steps back.

"Fear what are you doing?" Joy asked, now a tincy bit frightened herself.

"I'm doing what's best for Riley, avoiding embarrassment" Fear replied.

"Oh yeah and continuously stepping forwards and backwards isn't embarrassing" Disgust commented sarcastically.

"Fear could you let go?" Joy asked, seeing Courage trying hard to pull the lever upwards.

"The sooner we get this over with the sooner we can put our worries at rest" Courage said as kindly as she could.

"You can never put your worries to rest!" Fear shouted, refusing to let go of the lever that Courage was now desperate to have control of.

"Let me handle this!" Anger snarled, about to punch Fear so hard he would fly away from the lever, however Courage with her free hand held it up between the two male emotions.

"We have to have a limit or we find that Riley can't cope" Courage warned him, Anger instantly took his hands away leaving Courage to deal with the purple emotion herself.

But before Courage could think of what to say the bell rang which meant that break was over, even worse Riley was greeted to the sight of seeing Shelly with who was considered to be the popular group.

"Oh bravo Fear you have officially just made us look like an absolute moron!" Disgust yelled, getting closer towards him which sent him into a shaking mode.

"We could have at least spoken to her!" Anger yelled , jabbing a finger at the whimpering emotion.

While all the drama was unfolding Sadness had made the decision to distance herself to the pink sofa, pretending she couldn't hear a word they were saying.

"Guys! It's alright we can just speak to her later" Joy said,trying to reason with the others.

"We might not get a chance later!" Disgust argued, her death stare fixed on the purple emoticon with hatred.

"Everyone please. Im sure we can all just wait until lunch time because one there is more time, and two we can plan out what we want to say during our double science lesson" Courage said loudly before letting out a deep breath.

Each emotion apart from Fear gave her reasonable suggestion some thought before all agreeing that she was right.

"See? No reason to squabble or argue" Courage said before letting out a calm sigh.

"Agreed " Anger confirmed proudly, not once having left the pale emotions side since her sudden plan.

"Oh give me strength" Disgust muttered under her breath.

As the double science lesson went on Courage , Joy and Disgust were writing up a plan of what they were going to say, meanwhile Anger who was now sat with Sadness on the pink sofa was reading the latest issue of the mind reader with the title of,

 **Too scared to speak!**

Anger groaned at the heading before glancing up at Fear who had been walking around in circles for the last fifteen minutes, nonstop.

Huffing under his breath the purple emotion looked up at Courage, fearing the worst of what was to become of Riley's confidence.

As the dreaded moment came closer to beginning Fear's pacing began to gain speed which didn't go unnoticed.

"Will you stop pacing like that!" Anger snapped.

"I'm just so nervous-" Fear was cut off by the green emotions interruption, uncaring of the fact that the purple emotion was in the middle of saying something.

"You're always nervous" she stated before hastily adding, "that's why you're such a nuisance to Riley."

Pretending to be unaffected by her comment Fear walked over to the console, practically praying to himself that nothing would go wrong and that maybe, just maybe it was all in his head.

Hearing the bell go off Joy made sure Riley was one of the first ones out the door, the thought of being friends with Shelly motivating her to be even quicker.

"Come on gang we can do this!" Joy cheered.

"We better actually do it this time" Disgust scoffed, taking a short amount of time to glare at the purple emotion.

With the fresh memory of the earlier incident Fear stood back from the console, preparing himself for the worst as he saw Courage once again make her way to the levers.

The purple emotion noticed Courage taking a few seconds to look towards her and right hand side before pulling the lever up to find Shelly.

Once Riley had located Shelly near the bike sheds, she took a deep breath before softly patting her shoulder. Shelly turned around with a smile on her face.

"Hello." Shelly said enthusiastically, allowing no time for Riley to even breath.

"Hey Shelly, I'm Riley Andersen" was all Riley said to begin with.

"Nice to meet you Riley!" Shelly shook Riley's hand, " So how long have you been at this school?" Shelly asked curiously.

"Er just a few months, I moved here from Minnesota as my dad got a new job here" Riley explained.

"Oh cool! So do you fancy hanging out after school? As my mum and dad don't get back from work until five and i don't have a house key either" Shelly explained kindly.

"Yeah sure" Riley replied happily.

"Did she just ask to hang around with us!" Disgust asked loudly, looking at courage in total shock.

"I guess she did" was the pale emotions simple reply.

"Okay Riley, I'll see you by the gates at three thirty" Shelly called as she went off to the canteen.

Excited of what she had just accomplished Riley rushed off to her friends to tell them her big news.

In headquarters a similar celebration was going on.

"Whoo hoo!" Joy cheered, swinging around the other emotions.

"Well done Courage!" the yellow emotion exclaimed, pulling her into one of her long tight hugs which left Courage nearly gasping for breath.

"Well it wasn't that difficult, starting the conversation off is the hardest part then after that it just all comes naturally to you I suppose" was the pale emotions response to Joy's praise.

"You see that string bean, you were whining over nothing!" Anger called out to Fear.

"Nothing went wrong and Riley came back without any form of embarrassment" Disgust added with a smile.

None of the emotions could help but grin as Joy pressed a yellow button making Riley hum her favorite song down the hall to meet up with Sam and Katrina.

Meanwhile Fear had now hidden himself behind his bedroom door. Refusing to come out until he was certain Courage was out of sight.

Nearly recovered from the shocking moment that an already popular girl such as Shelly wanted to hang out with Riley, sent a small feeling of hope enter his conscious.

On the other hand he couldn't help but refer back to that certain lever moment with Courage , which had been playing on his mind since he was practically forced to let go of his Fears.

Letting himself get one more look at the pale cream coloured emotion, Fear who despite the fact was proud of Riley's achievements, his millions of concerns starting to run wild in his mind.

Fear pulled at his antennae as he thought to himself,

 _Just because she's done well for herself this afternoon doesn't mean I have to trust her._


	3. Digging deep

**Sorry about the shortness of the chapter! They will get longer.**

* * *

As the purple emotion without taking his eyes off the screen, watching Sam and Katrina who were in shock of how Riley was able to speak to new girl Shelly so confidently.

"Wow, you're a legend Riley!" Sam complimented proudly before slapping her shoulder encouragingly.

"Now that Riley is officially her friend, she can ask her to join my Minecraft club at last!" Katrina exclaimed, receiving a huff from Sam and a shrug from Riley.

"She had to ruin the moment" Disgust commented with an eye roll.

"Let's just forget about her and embrace the moment" Courage replied calmly.

"Yeah," Anger agreed.

As the yellow and creamy coloured memory ball rolled out into the memory shelves Joy was jumping around before pressing a medium sized yellow button.

"I'll tell you how it goes" Riley explained before walking off for the last lesson of the day.

The next following hours after the stressful afternoon, Fear decided to stay out of the way by digging deep into his research. With every click on a page his theory of Courage being his ultimate enemy , rapidly increasing by every glance of new critical information.

While Fear was aware Courage was receiving all the praise he used to get when Riley was at her old school back in Minnesota. Now that Riley's nearly thirteen years of age the purple emotion felt as if he was watching his own purpose being dragged away from in front of his very beady, purple eyes.

As the day passed over to tomorrow Sam and Katrina were more than eager to know how Riley had got on with Shelly.

Riley smiled as she clearly remembered the memory of yesterday's fun and games.

"It was good" was all Riley said.

"What did you two do?" Katrina asked happily.

"Well I invited her round my house and we just talked about the village in general with a hint of celebrity gossip. Nothing major" Riley explained in more detail, impressing Katrina and Sam.

"Oh, and before you ask, Shelly can't stand Minecraft" Riley added before walking away with Sam laughing next to her, leaving Katrina with a sad facial expression.

Fear looked towards Courage before leaving the other emotions to do their job in peace.

Well, all except one.

Over the next few days, the silent conflict between Fear and Courage progressed.

As each day went by Fear constantly took notes of every potential disaster that he could possibly think of. Even if it seemed like a ridiculous thing to think.

He couldn't take any chances.

What he wasn't aware of that Courage was thinking more or less the same.

Except she wasn't going crazy about it, however, she did have her suspicions.

A prime example of this was when Fear wasn't being too careful, which resulted in him bumping into the back of Courage before frantically picking himself up while falling back down at least three times.

While he was slipping and sliding Courage had been able to sneak a peak of his notebook that went flying as he fell.

Secretly picking up his nearly full notebook Courage glanced through the pages. Her eyes came to a sudden halt when she read Fears note of.

 _Reasons why Courage is dangerous._

 _1\. She is the opposite of Fear or in other words, ME!_

 _2\. She puts us through the stress of society._

 _3\. She's changing everything for the worse!_

 _4\. She doesn't let me fulfill my purpose of protecting Riley._

Before she got the chance read any more Fear snatched the book out of her hands before shouting rather suddenly, "don't read that! Before zooming into his bedroom , scrabbling for a blank page in his notebook.

Courage looked towards the distance scratching her head in confusion.

"What is up with him?" Courage questioned under her breath just before walking off with the freshly made memory repeating itself inside the pale emotions mind.

The following day was no better.

Apart from the almost endless texts from Shelly which Riley secretly almost admired which made a light feeling of pleasure inside Courage's heart. However, just one look at Fear could turn her cheerfully positive mood on its heels to become the strange feeling of awkwardness.

Even when she had no choice but to stand next to the purple emotion, she always got the impression that he despised her presence or had no understanding of what her actual purpose was. Either way, neither theory satisfied her.

Sighing with impatience, all Courage could do was grit her teeth and bare the nonstop negativity revolving around the purple emotion who was known as Fear.

So when the cream emotion discovered that Joy who had dream duty that night wasn't particularly busy with her duties. Knowing full well that this may be the one and only chance to dig deep, Courage took this rare opportunity to make clear her concerns for not only Fear but for Riley in the long run.

Clearing her throat at a reasonable volume Courage successfully was able to catch Joy's attention who greeted her with a polite "hey Courage."

The pale emotion took a seat in the pink sofa before realising Joy had joined her on the other side.

"So Joy, may I ask a question?" Courage began, her tone of voice staying it's usually elegant but at the same time snobbish.

"Sure. Go ahead!" Joy encouraged.

"Ok then. I need your opinion when I say how much use have I been since I came here?"

Joy was generally shocked by her question. Especially since she associated Courage with being the most confident out of any other emotion in headquarters, but she supposed it had taken courage for her to ask in the first place.

Joy smiled kindheartedly. "You have been very useful Courage. You have made Riley more confident within herself, plus you have achieved things we have never been able to achieve before!" Joy exclaimed before calming herself down.

As much as she could go on about all the creamy coloured emotions positive traits, she also knew deep down that Courage didn't need a whole list as in her mind she was more than aware of all her good qualities.

"I appreciate you honesty Joy" Courage responded before adding, "but I do have one concern which does not revolve around myself."

"Er ok" was all Joy could say to the pale emotions sudden revelation.

"It's nothing too personal." Courage said to Joy reassuringly.

Courage continued. Her tone of voice adopting a sincere touch to it. "However I am worried about Fear as I get on with everyone else including yourself, but whenever I'm near Fear he seems to develop a rather uncomfortable aura around me which doesn't make me feel any less uneasy."

Joy sighed lightly. "Hmm well. I don't think it's anything too serious, he's probably just still getting used to having you around as he did when Disgust and Anger first turned up. I wouldn't worry too much about it, after all, he will come around at his own pace."

Joy saw the look on the pale emotions face that said so what exactly should I do?

"In the meantime just pretend Fear is somewhere else when things become awkward, it may take some willpower but you out of all emotions have the ability to get through this without a doubt."

Joy's advice had indeed given Courage a bit more thought as on how to overcome this situation if it continued to escalate any further. On the other hand, a slight feeling of disappointment had entered her soul, filling it with the urge to talk it through with him herself.

However, her instincts told her that may not be appropriate at this moment in time.

Instead, Courage resolved to get to her bed to relax and unwind from yet again another action packed day.

Meanwhile unknown to the two female emotions a silent figure had from behind a door overheard their short but informative conversation. Who was revealed to be none other than Fear himself.

Glaring towards the distance. In particular, the spot on the pink sofa that the pale emotion had previously been sitting on.

 _How could she? How could she! She had no right to be telling Joy that. I'm not the one with the problem, she is! Only the others can't see that as they have all been sucked into her vicious curse of handiness. But I won't be fooled into believing her fake charm, nor will I fall for her pathetic attempts towards her pretend concern for Riley. I will expose this monster for who she truly is! Well just as long as stay safe, away from any potential danger of any kind or… Hang on, I'm losing myself here! The point is I will stick to her like glue, interrupt any chances she has to get her sticky, twisted paws on the console. For the sake of Riley's emotional and mental health!_

With that Fear slammed his notebook onto his desk, a tiny bit of his herbal tea splashing out of the cup from the force of Fear's arm strength.

Tomorrow was going to be an eventful day.


	4. There may be trouble ahead

The day had started off as your average, normal morning. Riley had woken up at the same time, she had eaten the same cereal along with putting on a different set of clothes for each school day.

She had even left for school at the same time without any delays or dangers.

Which in Fear's mind was the start of the journey towards another peaceful, normal day that was currently going well.

Looking around headquarters the purple emotion could clearly see Anger and disgust sharing the latest mindreader newspaper, while Joy , Sadness and Courage were talking amongst themselves near the console who Fear was just a few steps away from.

Sighing with relief when seeing Joy taking her turn on the console, Fear couldn't have been prouder of the fact that Courage hadn't been allowed to set one foot towards any buttons or levers.

Just then he caught Courage's gaze that was targeted right towards him. He raised an eyebrow in response, sending rather uncomfortable twinges down his spine when Courage supposedly raised an eyebrow back for good measure.

But in a more unfriendly way, or at least that was what Fear got out of her gesture.

However, all matters of conflict were soon temporarily forgotten as Riley had to get to the first lesson of the day , which the purple emotion generally found more important than his own issues.

After all, Riley was his main priority.

As the day went by the purple emotion was on the constant look out for where Courage was and what she was doing. It hadn't been as hectic as he had expected, although an alarm did go off inside his head that lunch time when he witnessed the sight of Courage walking towards the console. Luckily for him, Joy had stepped in front and taken over with Disgust on hand.

Fear wiped his forehead with relief. Despite his small good fortune, he wasn't prepared for what was to happen next.

"Hey , Riley" was the distant calling of her name. Turning around Riley was greeted with the sight of Shelly Jackson running up to her.

"Shelly?" Riley questioned, slightly worried about what Shelly may want with her.

"Yeah that's my name don't wear it out" Shelly replied before giggling lightheartedly, sending a shiver down Riley's spine which Fear could have sworn he had felt a bit of that sensation.

"Anyway do you want to come to my house, I know it's short notice but I get bored at home and no one else was free."

As Riley hesitated Fear quickly thought to himself, _no one else was free? So what, were your last hope of company? How suspicious._

"Yeah why not? Let's go!" Joy exclaimed leaning towards a button before Disgust broke it to her that this was the first time a socially cool person had asked them to their house. Joy considered her point and froze.

"Er yeah I guess you're right" Joy admitted. Suddenly Joy did the unthinkable.

"Courage why don't you go for it instead!" This left Fear in a state of shock.

 _How could she trust her so quickly?_ Fear questioned himself.

"Consider it done" Courage replied confidently, the purple emotion made a disgusted face behind her back.

Just as he was about to make his move to save Riley from potential danger Fear felt a harsh grip on his shoulder, yanking his arm to a twisted position.

"You're not mucking things up this time beanpole!" Anger snarled before looking up at Courage with a small smile.

Fear sighed miserably. _Great. Now Courage even has her own bodyguard. Can things get any worse?_

Unfortunately, they could.

"Yes of course Shelly, I'd love to" Riley replied without an ounce of fear on her facial expression nor her tone of voice.

"See worry wart, watch and learn" Disgust deadpanned, turning her sharp stare towards the shivering thin emotion.

While all the purple emotion could do was sulk and feel sorry for himself, Disgust tossed her hair and praised the cream coloured emotion for her good work. Closely followed by Joy and Anger, Sadness was less lively with her applause.

But that was irrelevant, all Fear could think of was how much of a praise thief that scandalising confident emotion was.

Suddenly without a second thought Fear caught Anger at an unfortunate moment of staring into Courage's eyes, he then managed to break out of his loosening grasp and made his way to the buttons. Resulting in him sending a cold feeling down her chest which Courage seemed to feel as she turned to him with confusion.

Ignoring her odd looks Fear continued to stand next to Courage and carefully watch and listen to her every word and action.

Fear refused to talk or even look at the cream coloured emotion throughout the whole journey to Shelly's house, still brooding at the fact that Riley could be in danger right now.

Once Riley was face to face with the door to Shelly's house Fear without much force nudged Courage's arm out of the way, earning him a slightly cross look from the pale emotion.

Walking into Shelly's home Riley looked around with Disgust taking mental notes on what to get Riley to say when explaining what it was like to be in a cool person's house to Sam the next day.

She wasn't the only one taking notes.

Fear was also in a fury of his own mental notes that he was more than willing to remember for future preferences.

Meanwhile, Riley couldn't stop her eyes from wandering the house as if she was in a cage. When she heard a sudden posh voice creep up from behind her, Riley turned around to be glumly greeted by a tall, petite woman who made no effort to actually welcome her.

"That's my mom Julia." Shelly introduced, Julia's sharp glare now fixed on her daughter before waving her off to go do something.

"She's not a fan of new people or anybody outside the family coming into our house" Shelly whispered when certain her mother had walked off.

Riley smiled shyly.

As they walked into the kitchen Shelly picked up on Riley's timid facial expression.

"Don't be so nervous, it's not a good look." Shelly hissed softly into Riley's ear, making her jump from the impact of her voice.

Inside headquarters, Fear froze in his spot, speechless at what he just heard out of Shelly's mouth.

"See Fear? Even Shelly can sense the radiations you let off." Courage said with concern, mainly for Riley but with some thought for Fear as well.

"Everyone knows that fear is our foe, not a friend now come on let's go watch some tv." Shelly added, leading Riley into her living room.

This left the purple emotion with his mouth hanging open from the shock of what he had just witnessed. The thin emotion then whimpered miserably, without noticing Sadness turned her attention towards his direction with a look sympathy.

Even Joy was slightly uncomfortable with Shelly's latest sentence.

"She's right though." Anger commented which went ignored.

Deciding to back off for a while, Fear went to hide with the mind manuals to make use of what little purpose he seemed to have left.

Shaking off Shelly unhelpful remark Riley followed her into the living room to find a tall, thin dark haired man already occupying the sofa. With a bag of salt and vinegar crisps that he was happily stuffing into his mouth, along with spilling crumbs all down the sofa.

"And this is my dad Crispin" Shelly introduced awkwardly, almost embarrassed by the revolting scene he was making.

Crispin turned around to make eye contact with Riley, raising a sly eyebrow he greeted her with a hello.

"Hi" Riley replied.

" And he's too friendly." Shelly whispered to Riley under her breath so her dad wouldn't notice.

"So you must be the big bad hockey player Riley Andersen" Crispin stated, his low voice creeping Riley out a little.

Shelly rolled her eyes, mortified at how her dad was so terrible at handling social situations.

"Uh, I don't know about the big… or the bad, but yeah I am a hockey player, I play for the team Foghorns." Riley explained, the weird feelings from earlier returning.

Crispin chucked. "Ah don't be so scared Riley, I'm only going by what Shelly told me." he explained, sending Shelly into a mortified state.

Shelly sighed with irritation before adding "I didn't say it like that, he's just being annoying. AS PER USUAL!" Shelly exclaimed before whisking Riley up the stairs to get away from her parents.

Practically shoving herself and Riley into her bedroom, Shelly sighed with relief, no longer anywhere near the two weirdos she had to call her parents.

"Sorry about that, they just don't understand how to socialise normally." Shelly said, now with no emotion showing in her voice.

Putting her unusual experience behind her Riley accepted Shelly's offer of doing her hair into a messy bun.

As Shelly's fingers made their way to making Riley's hair into a bun Shelly talked about her hobbies and interests, unknown until then that she and Riley did have a few things in common.

"I had no idea you were into Teen wolf" Shelly said happily making Riley smile too.

"You have to admit that Stiles is pretty cute!"

"No way Scott is way hotter." Shelly argued in a friendly way, winking at Riley.

Moving on to other things Riley and Shelly were soon giggling at various topics before being rudely interrupted by a stomping noise up the stairs, then the sight of her bedroom door bursting open.

"Goodness gracious Shelly, I can hear your fits of laughter down here." Shelly's mom Julia stated in a dull tone.

She then hastily added, "anyway it's time your friend went home, we have family business to attend to." Emphasising on the word friend.

Shelly raised both her eyebrows, signalling Riley to leave. As Riley got up and walked out with her messy bun slowly falling out, Julia watched her as she walked out the door with a sharp glare.

Quickly making her way to the front door, ignoring Crispins creepy sentence of goodbye darling. When she had officially left the house her messy bun was no longer in any form of a bun shape. She suddenly stopped in her tracks as panic rose when realising she had no idea how to get home.

"No no no !" Fear wailed, rushing over to the console to in record speed press a button multiple times, shoving Courage aside in the process.

Before he could do anything else he felt himself slowly being shuffled to the side as Courage pulled a lever. Causing Riley to gasp with delight as she saw a street sign pointing towards a path that would lead her to the neighbourhood she lived in.

"See nothing to panic over." Courage said, rubbing her hands together with pride.

Fear rolled his eyes, muttering something none of the other emotions could possibly make out.

"Well, that was a new experience and a half." Joy concluded.

"Yeah, her dad was just creepy." Disgust moaned.

"And her mum was quite snappy and intimidating." Sadness added.

"Not to mention that cow made us leave without even letting us say goodbye to Shelly!" Anger snarled.

"But the point is we got through it without any complications." Courage said calmly, looking at the purple emotion when producing her final sentence.

Courage hadn't meant her sentence in a bad way, however, Fear took it as personally as one could do.

"Exactly !" Joy squealed excitedly before rushing over to the others, requesting a group hug.

When the hug departed Riley had got herself home ten minutes before her original time plan. Normally Fear would be over the moon when stuff like this happened, but today that was the least of his concerns.

Making their own arrangements for the evening Fear made his way to the only place he could be away from a certain place emotion. Sliding down on his chair he rubbed his tired purple eyes with frustration.

The startling phrase that no one other than this supposedly great Shelly had blurted out was repeating itself over and over in his head. No matter how hard he shook his head, the memory wouldn't leave him in peace.

The tingling sensation of tears brimming up in his eyes were swallowed down as a sudden unexpected knock on his door jolted him away from any more negative thoughts.

"Joy wants you to join our group meeting." Sadness simply stated before slowly leaving

Fear shuddered before bravely making his way to join the others in what could be yet again another painful experience. However Fear was overwhelmed by the blissful sight of Courage being nowhere to be seen, a small feeling of hope tickled his lips.

 _Finally, they have come to their senses and are having a conversation to get rid of that ghastly , sickly pale emotion!_

A tiny smile that Fear had little control over spread halfway across his face until Joy began her meeting.

"So guys I know I asked this last week but I must ask you again. What do you guys think of Courage?"

This time, there were a lot more detailed responses from her emotional friends .

Disgust started off with, "her fashion sense may be dodgy but I do have to admit she has a certain way of attracting the socially cool people."

Fear's face fell as soon as her mouth stopped moving.

 _I expected her to criticize every little thing about Courage, why isn't she doing that?_

The next response annoyed Fear even more

"We have been positive throughout this week, so I guess she's a good friend." Was the response that belonged to the blue emotion who Fear silently had faith in.

 _Oh great, she's even worked her way through Sadness, the one with the most common sense out of the lot!_

The following response didn't shock Fear so much, infact it was highly predictable but still as hurtful.

"I admire Courage's persistent thinking, she gets the job done there and then!" Anger proudly said, with a long grin on his face.

"Are you sure that's not the only thing you admire about her?" Disgust retorted grumpily. For once Fear shared her bad mood.

"You shut up!" Anger almost immediately snapped.

Swiftly interrupting the argument Joy said, "well I also think she's good when it comes to decision making."

Fear groaned with annoyance.

The yellow emotion then added, "and she is always full of ideas for instance if we take today as an example she was up on her feet and plotting a solution for our minor problem in no time!"

Joy's point of view earned her a whole load of positive remarks.

Then out of nowhere all eyes were turned on the purple emotion who had previously been desperate to fight his urge to scream out that Courage was not a perfect emotion everyone claimed her to be, instead his resolved to ignore their obviously thoughtless witterings .

"Well after this week, what are your thoughts of her now?" Joy provoked encouragingly.

"Excuse me for my use of language but my thoughts are exactly the same, only that now I know she's a pain in the backside who's obviously got to all of you!" Fear bluntly replied before walking off in a huff.

Unaware that none of the other emotion had even made rude, snarky comments behind his back.

Even though technically pain in the backside wasn't as rude as what lengths Anger could go to , but for him, the phrase alone was terrifying to let loose. Besides, he hasn't got a reputation for the loudest mouth in headquarters.

Having exhausted himself after another tediously long day Fear flopped on to his bed before picking up his notebook, scribbling frantically.

Getting his shaky self under control Fear whispered under his breath to himself, _since she's brainwashed everyone apart from myself, it's up to me and me alone. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last as there may be trouble ahead._

 _I can feel it._


	5. Emotional experiences

**The diary of Fear- One week in.**

 _Dear diary._

 _So. It has been a whole week since the terrifying arrival of the emotion Courage. And to put it lightly everything since then has been changing drastically, but not for the right reasons ._

 _I could easily come up with at least six changes that she and she alone has caused._

 _In fact, I think I will._

 _1\. She has single handily pushed me to the bottom of the pack when before I was considered as important (even if it was only Joy and Sadness who actually understood my purpose.)_

 _2\. I no longer have the right to say how I feel about certain situations._

 _3\. She has even got Anger to be some sort of bodyguard for her as if she thinks she's some sort of celebrity emotion._

 _4\. When she first arrived she had already made a core memory, causing an instant amount of so-called trust in her._

 _5\. Out of all the emotions, Joy has been the most affected as before she was careful with decisions but now it's what Courage says goes, which quite frankly scares the life out of me._

 _6\. Last but not least (and with this point I'm looking towards the future here) if she had already figured out that the others are indeed sucking up to her fake charm, then who knows what she will be up to during the days to come. If we're not careful she could have us doing something ludicrous like doing a bungee jump!_

 _Anyway back to my diary. I have a prime example of how much in particular she is against me._

 _Ok so one night I couldn't sleep, yeah surprise surprise. Anyway moving on I decided to make myself one of my calming herbal teas to you know help my stress levels, so as normal I quietly got up as it's quite scary if you disturb the others when they are asleep. Being able to walk over to where my kettle and tea cups wasn't the issue, nor was actually having to make the tea. The issue was when I had to take it back to my room._

 _Unfortunately, things don't always happen the way you want them to, especially if someone walks right into you._

 _And it had to be Courage._

 _To add to my humiliation my nicely brewed cup of tea went flying then spilling onto the floor. Not that Courage seemed to care._

 _As I lay in a heap on the floor I could see those yellow eyes of hers piercing into mine, as if to leach out all my thoughts from beneath my ongoing mind._

 _It certainly didn't help when she snapped her fingers when attempting to get my attention. The next thing I knew I was being pulled up, quite forcefully to my feet without the chance to even let out a squeak._

 _Maybe this was just to silence me from screaming or saying something she would rather not want the others to know._

 _I didn't bother responding to her when asking if I was alright, besides why would she be the slightest bit interested in how I was?_

 _She did speak to me a second time, again I refused to give her any information. She would only use it against me in the future, better to be safe than sorry!_

 _As she finally got the hint her last words were and I quote "I'm leaving now" rather awkwardly in my opinion._

 _Maybe she has sussed out that I am on to her like a hawk._

 _Well, all I can say now is that this unfortunate little collision may be the key to working out_ Courage's _true intentions._

 _Now to take back the minuscule droplets of tea I have left, it's off to work on mission crushing Courage until morning._

* * *

 **The diary of Courage- One week down,loads more to go.**

 _Okay, so Joy gave me this cream coloured medium sized book to write my experiences of being in headquarters. Just to say I'm not much of a writer but I might as well make use of it._

 _To be brief my first week went better than I suspected, despite the obvious minor problems along the way._

Well in this case _there is only one real problem I'm currently faced to face with._

 _With most problems you can usually work out what's caused the issue and how to possibly fix it, but_ in this case _I have no idea what I've done wrong or bad in any way to hurt or even slightly offend him._

 _That him is Fear._

 _I don't like to sugar-coat things so I'm_ going _to be honest, brutally honest._

 _The current relationship between me and him is below the minus figures. We don't seem to have any bond or the slightest bit of understanding of each other, and quite frankly this scares me a little._

 _Fear's an odd character and quite vulnerable if you ask me. He seems to get well… obsessed with certain ideas or accusations that come into mind._

 _For example, when I first made my appearance here he didn't even make it past his bedroom door until a little tumble brought us together for the first time._

 _That wasn't the only time either. In fact, it was only this evening when we had our second tumble, however, this_ time _it was less active in conversation and more facialized._

 _It had all started off with a small collision that clearly knocked him off his feet. To try and be considerate I asked him if he was alright,_ however _he seemed more interested in my eyes rather than what I had to say to him._

 _Moving on from that slightly freaky gesture I snapped my fingers at him, not to be rude or anything it was just to get his attention. It had worked to a certain extent but he remained unresponsive._

 _Deciding that maybe now wasn't the time for confirmation I made the first move to walk away and pretend this never happened. But those greyish purple eyes of his followed me until I was so far into the distance that he was certain I had gone._

 _As awkward and as slightly nerve-wracking it was, this could help me to figure out what exactly Fear's problem is with me along with a practical solution to end this ongoing issue._

 _I am aware that Fear won't open up immediately, on the other hand if things do progress to far perhaps a little talk wouldn't be out of order. Now making the first move may seem daunting at first but things can't go on like this and it has to end sooner or later._

 _And if all it takes is for me to take a gentle approach to have it all out in the open then I must take that risk!_

 _And that's me done, so I guess_ it's _the end of this diary entry._


	6. Out with it

**Sorry for the slow update, real life took its toll on me. Anyway here is chapter 6 of Courageous as now Little miracles and this have the same amount of chapters :)**

 **Enjoy and Little miracles will be updated soon.**

* * *

"Come on guys, get up get up!" Joy exclaimed, twirling around headquarters even faster than usual.

"Are you crazy! You've woken us up half an hour before we're even supposed to!" Anger yelled, roughly rubbing his red ,tired eyes

"I couldn't help it , school has recently been too exciting not to wake up early for! Besides you know what they say, the early bird catches the worm!" The yellow emotion cheered, pumping a fist in the air from her overwhelming joy.

Truth be told Riley couldn't have been happier, and she owed it all to the pale emotion. Although the yellow emotion was technically considered to be the official leader, if she had to look up to anyone it would be without a doubt the confident Courage.

Thanks to her contribution Riley had made a new friend, therefore boosting her popularity which needless to say Disgust took some pride in . But even she couldn't resist looking up to the pale emotion a little, given the fact that it was mainly her work that created the massive achievement to Riley's life.

Despite their concerns Joy had always believed in her instincts when telling her that the pale emotion would make a valuable contribution. And what a contribution she had made. Courage had done a pretty good job in Joy's view, leaving Riley with her gained confidence that created positive vibes pumping around her veins.

Joy also believed without a doubt that with Courage who was now officially part of their group would take Riley's into her own hands to ensure that she would be on the road to a good school year, leading to a great life.

From this point onwards, what could possibly go wrong?

Then again she shouldn't speak to soon.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts Joy carried on with her morning job of keeping everyone focused on their duties to Riley, making sure that the school day would come to another joyful end.

So far everything had gone according to plan, sending Joy into a happy dancing mood.

It wasn't until Riley had arrived for another hockey match against a different team when things began to lead to an unexpected discovery.

As the coach gathered his team in front of him, he told the team he had an announcement to make.

"Following the Bulldogs match our former goalie Melody Jenkins has left the team due to the pressure becoming too much for her."

Sam who was stood next to Riley rolled her eyes before muttering "I knew she would crack at some point."

"Quiet at the back," the coach said before adding, "so due to her absence I am pleased to announce that we have a new goalie, so everyone give a warm welcome to Shelly Jackson and make her feel part of the team guys!" The coach moved towards his left to reveal Shelly standing smiling, then noticing Riley in the background.

As the team was made to go into their positions Shelly walked over to Sam and Riley, patting Riley on the shoulder and nodding at Sam.

"So Riley, now were both on the hockey team you can show me what you're made of"

"Yeah." was all Riley could say in response, the mixed feelings of shock and determination to prove to her that she was one of the good players on the team.

Shelly nodded her approval before tossing her hair and making her way to her own position.

Meanwhile, in headquarters Shelly was also the main topic of conversation.

"Well, this is new." Joy stated calmly, her light blue eyes following Shelly to her goalie position.

"We have to make sure we make no mistakes today!" Disgust commented, pushing her way to the console.

"Too right we can't risk any slip ups, especially not in front of the popular girls!" Anger exclaimed, his red eyes travelling across to where Shelly was standing, then towards the crown as he spotted Sam's older sister Nadine who was stood amongst the other popular girls her age.

Like Sam, Nadine also had black hair but hers didn't have a fringe, she wore pitch black sunglasses, a pair of ripped jeans that had rips down the sides and above her knees. She also wore a black leather jacket with a plain black top. Neither Sam nor Riley got on with her.

"She's going to watch us fail." Sadness said unhelpfully, however only Fear took on board of what she was saying.

When he had seen Shelly standing in her position he could have fainted there and then.

As soon as he was about to let out his jumbled sentence he was greeted by the sight of Courage and her smile when seeing Shelly.

 _That sly emotion, I bet she was the one who put the thought of asking Shelly to be on the team when no one else was watching! She can mess with me, she can mock my purpose but now she's gone too far!_ Fear clenched his fists with his own anger.

Fear took a couple of steps forward as if to lunge onto the pale emotion and knock her out.

"Right, remember everyone we're team happy and we're going to ace this!" Joy cheered, everyone soon followed including Fear who was grateful for Joy's interruption to distract him from his anger, even if it only worked for a minute or so.

His attention soon turned to the coach as he did his usual pep talk before the match.

During his talk, Joy had arranged a plan of who was standing where. As the yellow emotion went through all the details the thin emotions heart nearly missed a beat when she announced that Courage was to join her at leading tonight's hockey match. Courage and the others all nodded their approval to the plan, Fear face palmed himself with dismay. His purple eyes then followed the creamy emotion walk over to stand right next to the leading emotion, with a smile creeping up on her lips.

Fear cringed inside, _trust her to leach every possible opportunity she can to be the leader!_ Was the purple emotions short but snappy thought.

As the match was about to begin the rest of the emotions took their individual places towards the console, luckily for him Fear was placed next to Sadness. When the match actually began all the emotions were engaged with the duties, however, Fear could not help but occasionally give irritated glances at the pale emotion as if he was plotting something against her.

At first, the hockey match against the team who went by the name of Fire on ice went off on a good start, but the emotions work was far from over especially as the next ten minutes would lead to a difficult situation.

It had started with Riley losing a bit of focus when having been knocked into by a player on the opposite team.

"Watch it you idiot!" Anger yelled just before making Riley exclaim the exact same sentence, earning her a scowl in return.

"She didn't just scowl at us." Disgust commented crossly, folding her arms and rolling her eyes.

"Just ignore her." Courage added.

Joy and Sadness just looked at each other, both confused as to why they had their suspicions that something would sooner or later go horribly wrong.

On the other hand, Fear only had one thing in mind and it wasn't the incident.

However, it was soon after the incident when Riley began to lose focus which didn't help the tensions that were already on the loose. In front of her very eyes her arms were wobbling, causing her to bit by bit loose control of the hockey stick.

Sam who was two skates away from Riley kept telling her from time to time to pull herself together and focus, the more she repeated herself the angrier Riley became with herself and the whole situation altogether.

Meanwhile in headquarters Fear was on the verge of a panic attack while Anger and Disgust had joined Courage and Joy at the console, both playing their part as well as desperately trying to gain control of the game again.

As the match came to a break all the emotions were relieved to be able to help their girl's confidence return as quickly as possible.

"I think we've just about got this covered now guys," Joy announced then lightly tapping Courage on the shoulder, signalling her to take control for a while.

"I got this, don't you worry." Courage responded confidently. This sent a distressing feeling of anxiety down Fear's spine.

The cream coloured emotion reached over to pull a lever, making Riley take a deep breath with determination. Courage then rubbed her hands together with pride shortly afterwards, convinced that she had sorted everything.

Suddenly, out of the blue Riley then came face to face with the puck in her possession. But unlike the last time Riley began to tremble as several players from the opposite team skated towards Riley, blocking every possible way to escape them. Her nerves combined with the memories of the latest incident sent a stomach crushing feeling as the memory replayed itself within her mind.

"What- why are we trembling?" Courage questioned to herself just before turning to her right to find Fear holding down a purple button.

"Fear don't!" Courage exclaimed dramatically, pushing his arm off of the button.

Fear ignored her pleas, instead, he just pressed the button harder, therefore, increasing Riley's urge to tremble. The next thing he knew he was aiming to pull a lever as Riley approached to score for the team.

With her fingers crossed Courage took her opportunity to help Riley score for the team, all the other emotions watching her and embracing the heart beating moment. Joy was excitedly shaking, preparing herself for a bout of delight just by the thought of Courage being the key to Riley becoming the successful hockey player that they all believed she could be.

Courage sighed miserably before taking her chance to guide Riley to victory. Unfortunately, Fear has also decided to take one for the team, but not for the same reason.

As Riley was approaching closer towards the goal the purple emotions intentions became reality when Courage was just about to reach the lever that would draw a fine line between success and failure. However just as the pale emotion was about to make her move Fear jumped in at the same time by dragging the levers to the left making Riley miss the goal, causing the puck to go off side.

During the time she attempted to score a goal Riley collapsed to the floor, her blue eyes glistening with tears as she watched the puck drift off into the distance. Along with the gut wrenching feeling of defeat, she could hear people whispering about her in the background.

Needless to say, the Foghorns were pulled into the losing position, hearing the opposition cheer in delight made Riley feelings of guilt worse.

No longer being able to listen to their glory Riley dragged herself off the ice in remorse.

"Fear!" Courage yelled, smacking her hand on the console in pure anger once having put Riley into a daydream.

"What did you do that for beanpole!" Anger roared, as he approached the purple emotion with a whole load of embers violently sizzling on the top of his raging redhead.

"You've made us look like a complete moron, bravo Fear now the team have lost faith in us." Disgust joined in, her dull irritated voice sending distressing chills down the purple emotions spine.

"Guys please calm down, can we stop this?" Joy exclaimed, her usually bright eyes filled with misery.

"No! Can't you see it, Joy? Thanks to him were a complete loser now!" Anger shouted in response, the embers rapidly turning into a bout of fire as he let his rage control him for a split second.

"Uh Joy, Sam's approaching us." Sadness warned as she pointed towards Sam's facial expression.

Breathing deeply Riley turned her attention towards Sam, focusing on her voice as she spoke sharply.

"What on earth were you doing back there Riley? We can't afford to have any slip-ups especially since Shelly was watching the whole thing!" Sam exclaimed, her eyes darting towards Shelly who stared right back at her.

"Sorry," Riley mumbled back, not giving Sam any eye contact.

Sam sighed. "Look just keep it cool next time." was her blunt response before gesturing for her to come over to where she was going.

A feeling of shame suddenly entered her mind, the glum feeling of disappointment at not meeting up to Sam's high expectations.

"Sam hates us now!" Sadness cried before bursting into tears.

Not even Joy could find a positive excuse to prove Sadness wrong, in fact, dare she say it she agreed with her.

Before they could go any deeper about what had just happened Disgust warned them about more upcoming issues as Shelly paid Riley a quick visit.

"Oi Riley!" she began, her voice showing no emotion.

Riley looked up at her, struggling to fight her urge to show her guilt.

Shelly cleared her throat. "Look I'm not somebody to sugar coat things so I'm going to come out and say it… what the bloody hell do you call that kind of performance Riley Andersen?" Shelly questioned snappily.

Riley stammered before getting sharply interrupted.

"You know when I told my dad you were a good hockey player I actually had faith in you but now the reality has clicked in… I don't think you have the potential to be a true hockey player."

The statement alone hurt Riley more than she could express in words, instead, she mumbled out an apology along with a statement that she had tried her best.

Shelly laughed pitifully. "If that was your best, I'd hate to see your worst hunni."

Riley could feel the tiny remains of her confidence sinking down into the very bottom of her soul, this time, she didn't have the courage to fight back so Shelly continued, showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.

"Look if I was you I would take a leaf out of Melody Jenkins book and you know… drop out, it's for the best love." Shelly said, her brown eyes twinkling with the joy of knowing that her words were ripping into Riley.

Riley's innocent facial expression changed into an evil glare within one second, even she wouldn't take that much criticism from anyone let alone a popular girl.

"I'm not giving up hockey just because I had one bad day" Riley hissed.

Shelly laughed at her statement scornfully, "what will you do if you mess up on a vitally important match? Do you seriously think they would give a damn if your reason for messing up is because you had a bad day!"

Riley stayed silent, daring Shelly to go on.

"Ugh, you're not even worth it Andersen," Shelly said before tossing her ponytail to leave.

Riley tried to grab her shoulder to hear more only to find her arm was angrily shoved off with a snarl of _stay away from me Andersen!_

"Great even Shelly has ditched us!" Disgust stated in her normal snotty tone.

"And we all know who's fault that is, don't we!" Anger yelled, jabbing a finger at the trembling purple emotion.

For Courage, the day couldn't have gotten any worse until it did.

As Riley reluctantly followed Sam to get changed she felt a piercing grip on her shoulder from a pale hand, the other one on Sam's. Turning around to see who could possibly want to speak to them, she found that those hands belonged to Sam's vile sister Nadine.

"Good going odd jobs." Nadine spat hastily, shifting her focus onto Riley.

"Shut it, Nadine!" Sam spat back, giving her sister a death stare.

"Ugh whatever, let's move on to your epic fail of a friend's performance shall we?" Nadine questioned with mock kindness.

Riley glared at the older girl, "look I've already received an ear full from someone else I don't' need another one from you!" Riley exclaimed angrily.

"Whatever," Nadine responded before ordering Sam to get a move on so they could get home, Sam then left, trailing behind her older sister without saying goodbye, leaving Riley feeling empty.

Back in headquarters, the atmosphere was pretty much the same. None spoke nor moved as there was nothing to say or do. That very evening Riley refused to talk to anyone including her parents who grew concerned for their daughter but decided to leave it till morning.

It was at that very night when Courage was the one to finally speak up.

"Okay so we've had a pretty rough day, however, this doesn't by any means have to stay like this."

The other emotions except Fear looked up at her, wondering what she had in mind.

The pale emotion paced up and down around the room, "taking a leaf out of Joy's book why don't we list every positive memory Riley has had to do with hockey since the move."

Joy's facial expression cheered up a little, a bit chuffed that Courage had picked up on some of the yellow emotions traits.

"Ooh me first!" Joy cheered before adding "what about the time we played our very first match here, it went brilliantly and we managed to receive a few compliments, even from Melody Jenkins!"

"Melody was a nice girl." Sadness said gloomily.

"But she always was the weakest link of the team." Anger added unhelpfully.

"Guys come on focus, this isn't about the negative it's about the positives" Courage reminded them encouragingly, now sounding a lot like Joy.

"What's so positive about getting our butts kicked at something Riley loves!" Disgust stated angrily.

"Well, I…" Courage trailed off as Anger spoke instead.

"We wouldn't have to be in this situation if a certain emotion had kept his flailing hands to himself!" the red emotion shouted, getting up off the pink sofa and stomping towards Fear who was now fully aware of what could happen. And quite frankly he was fed up with it.

Despite his easily noticeable trembling Fear took a deep breath before carelessly blurting out, "I wouldn't have had to do any of that if Courage hadn't been overtaking the console with her arrogant ways!"

All the emotions turned their heads towards Courage who was just as shocked as they were.

"Wait what? You're blaming me for this?" Courage stammered, her yellow eyes widening at Fears accusation.

Fear groaned with annoyance. "Yes I'm blaming you as I know that it was your fault!" the purple emotion exclaimed, flapping his hands dramatically.

"Fear do you really think it's the right time for this?" Joy asked nervously, however she was cut off by Courage.

"No, let him speak." was all the pale emotion said, tilting her head as if she was signaling for Fear to carry on.

"Oh, how nice of you" Fear spat before adding in the same nasty tone, "considering the fact that it was you who has brought this on Riley."

The pale emotion folder her arms as she asked him the simple question of how.

The purple emotion let out a scornful laugh before answering her question. "You want to know how this is your fault.. Then fine, I'll explain it to you."

Courage gave Fear a look that said _go on._ So he did.

"Well first of all you just arrived like a whirlwind with no warning whatsoever, then you have the cheek to start messing around with Riley's life as if she's a string puppet. Then what's even worse and unforgivable is the fact that you've brainwashed everyone into thinking you're doing the best for Riley, when in reality your the one who's putting her in stressful situations which you know full well she can't handle!"

Once the thin emotion had finished his rant Courage responded with her own comeback.

"Ok first of all I did introduce myself the minute I got here, second of all I haven't been as you call it messing around with Riley's life, all I'm merely trying to do is to help her gain the confidence she needs to get through life, which isn't made any easier when someone is sabotaging my efforts."

Fear rolled his eyes at her comment.

At that point, Joy decided to intervene.

"Fear maybe if you gave Courage a chance you may be able to see her true intentions and see what she has to offer for Riley's future." Joy said calmly, but failing to get the stubborn emotion to change his mind.

"Oh I've already seen her intentions, Joy, she just wants to get me out of the way so she can do whatever despicable plan she has in mind to ruin what's left of Riley's life," Fear said bitterly, taking no notice of Courage's facial expression.

"What? I've done nothing of the sort!" Courage protested taking a couple of steps towards the purple emotion who was trembling slightly but managed to keep his body language firm.

"These things you have accused me of are all in your head! You are your own worst enemy Fear!" Courage shouted, then taking a deep breath to help her remain calm.

Before Fear could reply Disgust beat him to it.

"I hate to break it to you but Courage is right. Since you got those stupid ideas into your head you've been acting weird."

"Not to mention mucking up what could have been the end of a perfect match, but oh no you had to ruin it with your ridiculously idiotic ideas!" Anger yelled.

"And making everyone including the popular girl Shelly hate our guts!" Disgust exclaimed angrily, her green eyes viciously piercing into Fear's purply grey ones.

By now Fear's shaking had become heavier, now stepping back from the other emotions he panicked, frantically searching for a way out of the heated argument he now realised he wasn't going to win.

Instead of breaking down into a quivering whimpering mess or racing off to escape he caught control of his trembling and shouted out, "in case you didn't notice she insulted just because of one simple, stupid mistake and who does that? I mean what's even so special about her! She's just an ordinary girl with a strict mom and an embarrassing dad, see nothing special or extraordinary about her!"

Throughout the entire rant Fear's eyes had not left Courage's yellow ones. Unfortunately because of his inability to shift his focus to what he was about to do he accidently raised his arms up in the air, causing one of the core memories to get knocked off the core memory table and onto the bottom of Fear's foot.

But what happened next was going to be an unforgettable moment as when the memory hit his foot the previously cream coloured memory now developed a purple streak covering half of the core memory. The other emotions gasped from the utter shock of what had just happened.

"Oh no, it's happening again." Sadness stated anxiously, pulling her white sweater up to her mouth.

"MY CORE MEMORY!" Courage yelled as she ran up to it, snatching the memory ball from beneath Fear's foot.

Picking the memory up into her own hands Courage tried to place her hand on the purple coloured half of the ball, when she saw it wouldn't budge she began to get frustrated as she tried everything she could in order to fix her core memory.

"What's happened to it! Why won't it go back to normal!" Courage shouted desperately, the three female emotions plus Anger giving her a mixture of frightened and sympathetic looks.

"This has happened before." Sadness said, her gloomy voice upsetting Courage even more.

"And when this happened the previous time did the memory go back to its usual state?" Courage asked snappily.

Joy shook her head sadly.

Courage's eyes widened at the negative response. "So what you're telling me is that now my core memory is stuck with this streak of purple invading it!" The pale emotion called out in anger.

"Yeah." was the response from the three female emotions plus Anger.

Courage huffed crossly just before slamming the core memory back onto the table , refusing to look at it.

By now Fear had followed his instincts to leave the room and lock his door, never to return just in case he was relieved from his located limbs.

Making his way to his lavender bed he tightly clutched his duvet covers, holding on for dear life as if he was to fall into a bottomless pit of despair. Fighting the overwhelming urge to be drawn into to having one of his frantic frenzy moments, the purple emotion managed to calm himself down just enough to stop overthinking the whole situation.

While Fear spent the rest of the evening locked in his room, Courage along with Disgust and Anger were looking out of the massive window that displayed the personality islands, their eyes were particularly fixed on Friendship and Hockey island which were both down as the dull grey colour haunted where they stood.

Joy and Sadness on the other hand were closely examining the former creamy coloured core memory, curious as to why the memory would suddenly change as before there was a reasonable explanation for why it happened with Sadness, but nothing came to mind when Fear was mentioned.

"It was a perfectly good memory" Courage whispered under her breath before sighing sorrowfully.

The other emotions gave her a sympathetic look before carrying on with their duties.

Joy knew that from this day onwards there were going to be, without a doubt some challenges to go face to face with. But with the right guidance and determination, she knew that she and the team would get there in the end. But for now all Joy could do was wish that tomorrow would be a better day.


	7. One and only chance

**Hello Dear readers, sorry if this chapter wasn't as exciting as the last one but I still hope you enjoy it!**

 **Just to note there is only one mention of the word mixed race in this chapter so I hope it won't offend anybody as it's not used in any rude way whatsoever.**

 **Anyway enough rambling from me, once again enjoy this chapter :)**

* * *

That very evening Courage found herself standing right in the middle of the corridor which leads to the emotions bedrooms.

In front of her very eyes was the front of a lavender coloured door she was soon to enter at her own risk. Breathing heavily Courage crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that her efforts would pay off to a positive start.

"Here goes." She muttered to herself before opening the door to which she was surprised to find unlocked. Fear's eyes automatically widened with terror when suddenly made aware of what was going on.

He then silently waited for the pale emotions explanation.

"Look Fear I ..." Courage trailed off before regaining the will to speak. "Okay so we haven't got off to the best start, however, I am willing to leave our differences behind and start afresh as they say. So what do you say to wiping the slate clean and starting over?"

Courage managed to pull off a small smile, hoping it would encourage the thinner emotion to come to his senses and leave their conflict behind.

 _Oh so now you're "apologising" but then you expect me to go all soft and touchy feely just because you give away a few guilty smiles and puppy dog eyes. Well your apologies won't work on me!_ Was the thought that sprung to Fear's mind almost instantly.

The purple emotion who was sitting on the side of his bed twiddled his fingers, not saying a word to Courage's offer.

"Uh Fear, did you not hear what I just said?" Courage asked as politely as she could manage, even if beneath her kind tone of voice she was irritated by his selfish choice of not to listen.

"Hmm" was all she got in response. Courage fought her urge to huff at his inability to produce a helpful answer.

Instead Courage let out an exhausted sigh. "So what. You're not going to acknowledge that I have gone out of my way to make amends?"

 _Gone out of your way… ha! Your probably only doing this because one of the others told you to do so, I'm not stupid._ Was yet again another thought that leapt into action inside the purple emotions mind.

Fear looked up at the cream coloured emotion emotionlessly before muttering out the phrase of _that's nice._

This time Courage could no longer suppress an angry huff. "Look I will ask you one more time, can we just start over and put our disagreements to bed? As this conflict really won't help Riley in the future and I had kind of hoped that last night's events had taught you that."

 _So now you're bringing Riley into this? What cheek! Can't you acknowledge that this is your fault and yours alone?_

"I guess not." Fear replied quietly, his voice showing no guilt or any bad feelings in general.

 _I'm not giving up on him, well not yet._ Was the thought that span around the pale emotions head. Shaking herself out of her thoughts Courage tried one last time in her mission to get Fear to compromise with her.

"So that's your final answer? And you're not going to add anything to that?" Courage asked, the seriousness in her voice slightly scaring Fear.

Deciding to keep to his firm posture and tone of voice all the thin emotion said was, "look I don't know who talked you into this but maybe you should take a hint and just ... leave."

Courage flinched back from the purple emotions insult as if it was to attack her.

Suddenly her yellow eyes darkened at his rude reply, and in her disappointment and frustration she yelled out, "do you know what I'm done with this!" Before tossing her head towards the exit.

"Yeah? So am I." Fear retorted, his purple eyes looking right at Courage's yellow ones.

"Whatever I'm out of here." Courage spat, now ignoring Fear's presence entirely.

Fear looked up towards the pale emotion once more before whispering to himself "while you're at it why don't you just disappear altogether."

Leaning against Fear's bedroom door with her right arm she mumbled something along the lines of _well thanks, thanks a lot!_ Before slamming his door with the force of her inner anger, leaving Fear with only his thoughts for company.

 _Well, that could have gone better._ Courage mumbled to herself before sighing in frustration, unaware of Anger walking towards her.

Upon seeing the pale emotion standing just a couple of steps away from him, the red emotion didn't hesitate to talk to her.

"Hey Courage" Anger began before noticing her annoyed facial expression.

"What's up?" Anger questioned, earning an exhausted sigh from the pale emotion.

 _I suspect I'm going to regret this but what else have I got to lose?_ Courage thought to herself before reluctantly allowing herself to be lead to the pink sofa to explain her issue to the red emotion.

"Ah" was Anger's response once Courage had finished explaining the details.

"You know I could have a word with him myself." Anger offered, a sly smile creeping up on his lips, however, Courage didnt seem too keen on the idea.

"Look Anger I don't mean to be rude it's just… I really think this is something I should deal with myself." Courage responded kindly.

But Anger wasn't going to give up that easily.

"I get where you're coming from but why don't you leave this to me, I think he would benefit from a man to man type of talk."

"Which would consist of?" Courage questioned nervously.

Anger smiled reassuringly. "Oh you know, just a brief conversation to lighten up the situation a little."

"Right?" Courage replied, her voice slightly shaky.

"So do we have a deal?" Anger asked, raising an eyebrow as if to convince the pale emotion to trust him.

Courage sighed before giving in. "Fine it can go ahead but strictly talking, no violence!"

"You have my word, there won't be a punch in sight."

With that, Anger shook Courage's hand before leaving her sat on the pink sofa.

* * *

The following day the bad atmosphere around headquarters remained the same. Nobody had spoken to each other or even acknowledged anyone's presence in any way.

Not even Joy could find something positive to cheer about. Neither did she do her normal morning wake up call by playing her accordion non-stop until each emotion was awake and ready to go.

In fact dare she say it she didn't see any reason why Riley would be needing her anytime soon.

Throughout breakfast Riley hadn't said a word, not wanting to explain herself about the recent hockey disaster. Nor did she want to go into details about how much she longed for the day off school to avoid embarrassment.

"Should we just cry and get it over with?" Sadness suggested, her offer went ignored.

Silently Riley had lifted her back up to her shoulders before walking out of the front door, her eyes not meeting her parents as she quietly closed the door behind her. Then onto the path towards humiliation.

"Why are we feeling like this? We shouldn't be feeling like this!" Anger exclaimed violently, embers already sizzling on the top of his red head.

Disgust tossed him a _are you stupid_ look before adding, "Uh hello in case you haven't noticed were about to walk into social isolation."

"If only I could get my hands on that purple string bean" Anger muttered under his breath which no one else heard.

By the time Riley had arrived at school with the disappointment that she had made it on time, she soon noticed that some of the students had began pointing and whispering about her. In the end Riley had lowered her head so that she was looking at the floor, hoping that they would figure out she wasn't in the mood for their gossip.

Luckily for her the bell rang just before anything else could happen, leaving her with a faint feeling of joy before returning to the misery that currently ruled over her state of mind.

Throughout the entire school day, Riley's mood hadn't changed. Not even when she was faced with a friendly greeting from Katrina , if anything it had made her feel worse.

"Oh great, now were stuck with only a computer game geek for company" Disgust moaned, her famous eye roll once again making an appearance.

"One friend is better than none" Sadness stated, her blue eyes looking up at Disgusts green ones.

"Ugh, we would rather be alone than hang out with her! We can't be labelled as a geek as well as a failure" Disgust scoffed then pressing a green button towards her right.

"Just leave me alone" Riley muttered,leaving Katrina by herself.

For the remaining minutes of lunch, Riley had made her way to class early, hoping not to bump into anyone during her journey.

Sitting in last lesson which seemed to take forever to finish Riley was finally spared from boredom when the school bell rang, signaling the teacher to let his students go for the day.

"And remember class your history projects are due in tomorrow, no excuses!" the teacher called out as the students packed up and left the class.

"Oh great, just when you thought the day couldn't get any worse" Anger grunted.

"We haven't even started the history project, oh no were gonna get detention then mom and dad will be mad at us!" Sadness wailed, collapsing to the floor with tears leaking out of her eyes.

Upon hearing their conversation Joy perked up, a little bit of her positive attitude returning to her.

"Come on guys we will just have to do it tonight, besides we have bigger things to worry about" Joy trailed off after her last sentence. Now realising that she hadn't helped at all.

"Yeah, don't we know it" Anger spat under his breath just before looking towards Fear's bedroom door where Fear had been hiding all day. He hadn't dared to come out incase anything drastic was to happen, involving him flying across headquarters .

Up until now Fear had restrained his urge to check up on what was going on. However after having fought the will to sneak a peak he could no longer help himself as he opened his door a tiny fraction, just enough to see a glimpse of action.

Unaware of the purple emotions sudden presence the rest of the emotions apart from Courage, who had placed herself near the mind manuals walked over to the console when realising Riley had another session of hockey practise.

"Oh, this is going to be so bad!" Sadness whined, tears threatening to leak out of her eyes.

"It will go more badly for them if they fail to keep their mouths shut!" Anger spat viciously, slightly scaring the other emotions.

"Come on you guys, can't we just !" Joy exclaimed then stopping half way through her sentence, her patience starting to wear thin.

Before any of the other emotions could reply Riley had arrived at the hockey rink, only to be greeted with a mixture of hard stares and concerned looks.

"Why don't you take a photo, it will last longer!" Anger yelled towards the screen, his red fist slamming on the console causing Riley to scowl at those who were giving her cold stares.

As Riley made herself walk closer to the ice she saw the recognisable body figure that belonged to Sam, who at school had been avoiding her all day.

Now having noticed Riley walking towards her she snapped her head round before leaning into her ear to whisper, "Riley sorry about the whole avoiding thing it's just my sister had got into a right tizzy about you and yesterday's… events." She coughed awkwardly once she had finished.

"Is that the best excuse she could come up with, seriously?" Disgust barked, her facial expression scrunching up with irritation.

"Or it's just her polite way of saying she hates us!" Sadness cried, with tears rolling down her cheeks like an overflowing waterfall.

"Tell us the truth Sammy, I dare you!" Anger snarled but didn't touch the console.

"Now isn't the time Anger, " Joy said seriously before commanding that everyone was to focus their attention on hockey.

Straight after Joy's order the coach blew his whistle and told the team to gather round for what he called an important chat .

Right Foghorns today is going to be a short session due to being pressed for time. Now I have called this team meeting to discuss next week's hockey match, the reason for this is because we need a team captain. So any volunteers?"

The coaches question sent received quite a significant amount of hands shooting up, all desperate to be picked.

"Wel, at least we don't have a chance of being picked to be captain" Sadness stated.

However, she was proved to have spoken too soon as Shelly was quick to catch the coach's attention.

"Coach I personally don't want to be the team captain but may I nominate Riley for the part?" Shelly asked politely, then turning her head towards Riley with a massive grin.

All Riley could do was stand in shock of what Shelly, the girl who more or less asked her to drop out of the team was now volunteering for her to be captain.

"Er, I…" Riley hesitated, now aware of the rest of the team staring at her, all wanting to leach an answer out of her.

In headquarters, Fear who was still confined to his bedroom was shaking from the impact of the current situation. His greyish purple eyes widened at what Shelly was suggesting, his whole body wobbled with terror.

"Er, what should we say?" Sadness asked with concern.

"Well we can't say no" Disgust replied bluntly.

At that very moment, the emotions turned their heads towards Courage who still remained sat with the mind manuals , minding her own business.

"Er, Courage I think we may need your help here" Was Joy's sentence to grab the pale emotions attention.

Having heard her sentence Courage looked up at her, her pale face showing no emotion.

"Oh I don't think I have anything to offer here, do you!" Courage responded bitterly. Her aggravated eyes violently blinking before letting out a huff then going back to stare at one of the mind manuals.

Joy winced at Courage's level of aggression.

 _She just needs more time_ was the yellow emotions short thought.

"Joy!" Sadness and Disgust called at the same time, urging her to look at the screen.

Returning their focus on their way of turning the role of team captain down they soon heard the gruff comment of, "Uh weren't she the reason we messed up yesterday!"

The statement came from a mixed raced girl called Elisha, who Riley had never truly got on with. Her jet black dreadlocks draped all the way down to her back and across her face, just leaving a tiny amount of space for her brown eyes to glare into Riley's blue ones.

"Yeah why should she be our team captain!" Another team member scoffed, who was revealed to this time be a boy named Keith who Riley had only spoken one time to congratulate him on scoring his first goal for the team.

Riley sighed at the horrifying amount of hate that came flying towards her.

Shelly didn't help her situation by saying, "I'm not denying the fact she messed up. She did and big time, but if we cut her some slack she can make it up to all of us and prove that she's as determined as she says she is."

The whole team nodded their agreement.

Riley's eyes widened at Shelly's speech, gobsmacked at how low she would stoop just to get one over her.

"Right, that's' it!" Anger yelled, shoving his way to the console and pushing the rage levers as a result of no longer being able to control himself.

"Fine, I'll do it, I'll be the team captain!" Riley snarled through gritted teeth, glaring at each team member.

"Splendid! You'll do well Andersen!" the coach announced enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, in headquarters, each emotion including Fear all had their mouths open from the shock of what Anger had just led them into.

"What!" Anger yelled once noticing their annoying stares.

"Uh, what happened to not taking the role of being team captain into our hands!" Disgust scoffed scornfully.

"Well someone had to shut that Shelly up!" Anger retorted.

The coach then whistled to retrieve the team's attention. "I have to go but I expect to see each and every one of you here at 4pm tomorrow afternoon, have a nice evening Foghorns."

Once sure that everyone else had made their way out of the rink, Riley walked over to get to the exit when she felt a weak pat on her shoulder from Sam.

"Riley" Sam sighed before shamefully adding, "I hope what you're getting yourself into Andersen because if you mess up, the whole team comes crashing down with you."

"Thanks for your helpful advice Sam." Disgust commented sarcastically form headquarters.

Instead, Joy got her to say "er thanks, I guess" before walking off into the distance.

For the entire journey home the emotions couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened, to add to their misery the arrival of the latest memory didn't help with the process either.

While most of the emotions were still trying to get their heads around what had happened, the raw nerve who hadn't moved from where he had stood for at least half an hour let out a deep sigh before turning his focus onto Courage.

Having seen the sight of Courage sitting alone at the back of headquarters brought on a hint of pleasure that for once she saw she wasn't needed or wanted. Fear's lips betrayed him by letting a smile out in the open, then fading soon afterwards when telling himself he shouldn't take advantage of other emotions bad moments no matter how tempting it was.

Luckily for the purple emotion, Courage hadn't noticed his grins, in fact, all she could do was stare at the floor as if watching her confidence disintegrate minute by minute.

Then the feeling of shame mixed with sadness travelled inside him, his greyish purple eyes looking watery as he lowered his head and shut the door. The unwanted feeling of loneliness suddenly creeping up on him.

 _I thought they would have at least told me about all this, even if they didn't need me at the time._ Fear thought to himself sadly just before flopping onto his bed and closing his eyes as if to try and relax.

Back at the console Disgust and Anger were bickering about what the red emotion had blurted out in front of the hockey team earlier that afternoon, while Joy and Sadness were perched in front of the console with Sadness taking control from remembering what Sam had said, now desperate for Riley to regain her confidence.

"Oh this is bad, she could lose all her islands again" Sadness warned, her voice trembling as she spoke, causing Joy to adopt a worrying tone of voice.

"No," Joy said quietly before walking over to the window that displayed the personality islands, noticing that the fairly new Confidence island was the same dull grey colour that all the islands had once been. Only this time Confidence island was overruled by the darkness alone.

However, their misery was pushed aside when hearing the rising volume of Anger and Disgusts heated argument, which had even attracted the pale emotions attention which seemed to be focused elsewhere.

"Only you would be such a moron and go do something you know full well is stupid!" Disgust shouted, pointing a stern finger at the shorter emotion who had embers getting ready to explode.

"Oh yeah? I only said it to shut those whining brats up!" Anger spat furiously at Disgusts accusation.

"Aw ok, so you only made Riley say something she shouldn't have just because once again you had failed to control your temper!" Disgust replied sarcastically before glaring into the red emotions raging red eyes.

Huffing with frustration Anger yelled out "you know what I'm done with this petty argument!"

Disgust rolled her eyes in response before Anger added in a gruff tone "anyway I don't need to stand here and be insulted."

Disgust let out a harsh chuckle. "Yeah, you can be anywhere and be insulted" were her final words as she watched the brick stomp out into the distance, clenching his fists.

As the red emotion stomped his way towards his room he noticed Courage sat beside an opened mind manual that had been left face down on the floor.

"Ugh, I still have to talk some sense into that wimpy beanpole" Anger muttered to himself before realising that Courage was giving him a look that said, _have you spoken to Fear yet?_

In response to her questioning stare he winked as if to say, _I have it covered._

Courage grimaced and shuddered in response to the red emotions slightly weird gesture.

As the eventful day drew to a close all the emotions were for once relieved that the day was over, meaning that their duties were finished for the night.

"Ok gang I'm taking dream duty tonight, we did well today!" Joy announced, trying her hardest to be positive which even for her was proving to be a difficult task.

The other emotions replies were a mixture of groans and weak waves.

Having heard the yellow emotions announcement Fear blinked before slowly and cautiously making a move to get up from his laying down position on his bed. As he carried out the task he heard soft footsteps towards his bedroom door, the purple emotion then jumped nearly as high as the ceiling crashing back down and scrabbling his way under his bed in fright.

He began to shiver as the footsteps got closer towards his door. However, he was more than surprised to only receive a piece of paper slip through the very bottom of his door. The footsteps began to get quieter as they retreated back to wherever or whoever they came from, he waited at least ten minutes to be sure that the footsteps had indeed gone

Carefully walking over to retrieve this note the purple emotion hovered over it for a few seconds before snatching it off of the floor and opening the piece of paper that read,

 _Fear._

 _I know things have been very hectic these past few days._

 _But tomorrow I want to talk to you about the future for Riley's sake which involves some changes._

 _I would do it in headquarters but I figured it would go better in private, so meet me on Confidence island at midday to discuss these changes, don't worry it will benefit Riley._

 _I promise._

 _From Joy._

After having read the letter more than a few times Fear couldn't stop himself from staring at the letter along with a billion thoughts zooming across his mind.

 _Wow! Joy has finally noticed how mad things have been around here! What does she mean by changes? Oh, I know maybe she's going to ask me to take control of the situation or even better maybe she's on about emotional changes such as getting rid of Courage for good!_

Fear then unexpectedly found himself dancing in delight that Joy of all the emotions had noticed and was prepared to take action over the current situation. After reading the letter once more Fear hugged the note close to his chest while his heart sang with Joy.

* * *

 **I forgot to add this last night but just so that you know this chapter is not in any way to cause any offense. Oh and finally this story will be my main focus as I have stumbled on writers block on Little miracles but I will not discontinue or give up on it, I'm not like that .**


	8. Painful consequences

**Hello, readers just to say that Little miracles will be updated by the end of this week I promise. Anyway enjoy Chapter 8 !**

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Fear could have chewed his nails all the way down to his knuckles if he hadn't been busy performing his duties that very next morning. Every time his eyes were able to target Joy, the gentle feeling of relaxation filled him with content.

To add to his joy he hadn't seen or heard from the pale emotion for the entire morning. Although he was glad that this was the case he couldn't help but have the tiniest feeling that she may be hurting inside.

Pushing his doubts to the side, Fear was soon pulled back into the present as he was called over to ensure that Riley made her way safely to school.

"Right gang were going to have a wonderful day today, I can feel it!" Joy cheered gleefully, besides things couldn't get any worse than yesterday in Fear's mind.

However Joy's positive cheer hadn't worked on everyone as Disgust responded with an eye roll, anger grunted while Sadness and Fear remained unresponsive, but for entirely different reasons.

Joy sighed slightly as she turned her attention to the grey, gloomy Confidence island that seemed to sit in the darkness for eternity. Even Fear couldn't help but take a short look, a gut wrenching feeling of fear rumbling inside of him.

Taking a deep breath to hide his inner feelings, the purple emotion soon found himself being roughly shaken before snappily being told to focus by Disgust who gave him a disapproving look.

Fear mumbled out an apology, refusing to give her eye contact before walking over to the console then stopping as he took his place next to Sadness.

"Here we go again, another exciting day at school being teased and whispered about" Disgust sarcastically spat , making the thin emotion a few steps away from her whimper.

"Oh come on guys," Joy said from across the room, "I know we've had a pretty rubbish week so far but today is Friday and as we know Friday's are the happiest days!"

"How ridiculous" was the faint mumble from the red emotion stood next to Disgust, engaging himself with the mind reader.

Before Joy could reply Disgust had beat her to it by saying something along the lines of, "let's face it Joy what is there to be happy about?"

That question had hit the yellow emotion hard. The harshness of the green emotions snappy question was enough to drive all her positive thoughts along with her happy vibes out of her soul, leaving a strange empty feeling behind.

Joy slowly walked away, her over the top confidence gradually fading away with each step she took. After walking a few steps away from the console she sat herself down on the pink sofa, a shimmer of hope for a good day somehow managing to escape from her mind.

Knowing that this would most possibly be the only chance of being happy all day, Joy took a deep breath before going along with what the day had to offer her and Riley.

Walking into the first lesson of the day Riley soon found herself sitting at the very back of the class, no one sat next to or even spoke to her during the entire time. However, it did send a tiny bit of relief, after all it was a lot easier for her to deal with.

The second lesson was pretty much the same, the difference being Katrina had briefly spoken to her, only to receive a hissed out response of shut up from Riley.

Looking hurt, Katrina did what she was told, meaning she didn't speak to Riley for the remaining half an hour of the lesson.

"Anger that was completely unnecessary!" Joy barked from headquarters before giving Katrina a sad look through the screen.

Disgust tutted at Joy's misunderstanding at social cues. "Newsflash Joy she's the most unpopular girl and not to mention totally weird, we can't be seen with her." The green emotions explanation making no sense to Joy.

Although Katrina had played a part towards Riley's frustration, it was nothing compared to what was about to happen. At first, Riley thought that she had seen Sam walking over to her, despite the uneasy feeling that this time she wasn't alone. Her instincts were soon proved right when she saw a glimpse of someone else's arm gripping onto Sams, it was soon revealed that the arm belonged to no other than her sister Nadine.

Nadine made no effort towards an introduction while Sam just stood next to her in silence, refusing to show any eye contact to Riley or her sister.

"Don't you have something to say to Riley?" Nadine asked in mock sweetness as she jabbed Sam with her elbow, nearly causing her to knock Sam right off her feet.

Sam stammered which to Riley was a new sight. "I er… Look Riley I "

Riley hesitated for an answer.

"Go on" was all Nadine said to encourage her sister who had now forced herself to look up at Riley.

"Riley I can't be friends with you anymore." was all she gave as an explanation.

Meanwhile in headquarters, all the emotions accept Courage gasped at Sam's unexpected revelation.

"Right that's it, she's really done it now !" Anger yelled then grabbing the rage lever nearly turning it up full blast.

"What do you mean!" Riley snapped, her blue eyes turning cold at the sight of her now ex-friend.

"You heard her moron" Nadine retorted before hastily adding, "anyway to help ease in the news I thought I would let you know that you now have the reputation of being the school reject with only your geeky girlfriend for company," Nadine laughed scornfully as she and Sam who she still had a firm hold of walked away.

Riley huffed angrily, her fists were clenched like Anger's only she was also breathing heavily with the amount of rage that had risen throughout the chat.

Trying to calm down Riley collapsed onto the bench, desperate to get some peace and quiet so she was able to carefully think over what had just happened.

In headquarters a faint sound of one part of Friendship island crumbling away into the memory dump was heard within the distance, causing the emotions to worry.

"Oh this is sad, everyone hates us!" Sadness wailed from the far corner where she had retreated along with Fear during the heated talk.

"I hate to admit it guys but Sadness is right" Fear cried, now rushing around the room in a massive panic.

"Our reputation is being flushed down the toilet as we speak" Disgust stated in a gloomy tone as she brushed her hair back into place.

"Not to mention our dreams of becoming a professional hockey player!" Anger shouted, violently kicking over a stool which landed face down with one of its legs snapped in half.

At this point, Joy had nothing positive or even remotely encouraging to offer. She knew she couldn't help and even if she could, she doubted that it would make any real difference to Riley's emotional health.

To make things worse Katrina once again approached Riley with a million questions, showing no sign of stopping. However, Riley had lost her entire patience and yelled out rather viciously.

"Katrina, can't you see I'm not in the flipping mood to be bombarded with your pointless questions? I mean what on earth makes you think I like you! Well, let me tell you I can't stand you ok? So do me a favour and LEAVE ME ALONE, I am not hanging around with some geeky girlfriend who had nothing better to do with her pathetic life than bother me twenty-four seven!"

Riley ignored the fact that Katrina had tears trickling down her cheeks from the shock of being yelled at in such a hurtful way.

She then ran away crying while Riley glared at her, her anger only fading slightly as the sound of Katrina's crying only stalled her for a second before her anger came back at full force. She then suddenly noticed the students standing behind her gasp in horror, sending all angry thoughts at the back of her mind as guilt took over.

Not bothering to yell at the other kids to stop staring at her she walked off with her head down to the floor. She clutched her rucksack as she made her way to next lesson ten minutes early to avoid any crowds.

"Well this day keeps getting better and better," Disgust said sarcastically, her painful tone of voice echoing across headquarters.

Anger had only just about calmed down from his huge rant so he remained unresponsive. Joy and Sadness were too stunned to speak and Fear had disappeared entirely, clearly unable to cope with drama of any kind.

While the double lesson went on for what seemed like ages the other emotions had reluctantly promised Joy to keep themselves busy until lunch time. Resulting in Joy and Disgust keeping watch over the islands, Anger reading the mind reader to help control his rage which left Sadness near the console and Fear with the mind manuals, secretly liking his new hideout away from all the problems of life, at least for a temporary basis.

All of a sudden he felt a jabbing pain in the side of his arm, Fear instantly became alarmed at what could have caused it. Looking down he saw a paper aeroplane down below his knees, cautiously opening it the letter read,

 _Sorry for the inconvenience Fear but I really need to talk to you on Confidence island ASAP or in other words as soon as possible._

 _Joy._

"Joy needs my help" the purple emotion whispered to himself before whizzing off to the recall tube that had been in his room since the move. Not bothering to think through what he was about to get himself in for the purple emotion jumped into the recall tube, only to be spat back out minutes later.

He landed with a hard thud before picking himself up and dusting off his deep purple trousers. Clumsily getting back on his feet he eventually made his way to the grey Confidence island that until now had never known existed.

"Joy?" Fear called out, receiving no words in return. He shook a little of Joy's lack of response the second time he called just before hissing under his breath to pull himself together. He forced himself to stop shaking when he heard footsteps coming towards him.

 _See? Joy must have just got held up, I should have more faith in her"_ Fear thought to himself as he waited for the footsteps to reveal the yellow emotion.

Meanwhile, in headquarters the school day had come to an end, leaving only hockey practise before Riley could relax and enjoy the weekend. Riley grunted as she lifted up her heavy hockey kit from her locker before making her way to the ice rink that was only a five-minute walk from school.

"We need to gather everyone round for hockey practise" Sadness pointed out to Disgust, unknown to her that Courage had just come out of her room wondering where half the emotions were.

On the other hand Fear who was still stood near Confidence island wasn't prepared for the shock of realising that the footsteps he originally thought were Joy's, actually belonged to the short red emotion.

"How's it going beanpole?" Anger asked, no fake kindness entering his voice.

"Er… Hi .. erm.. Er Anger… wha- what are you doing here?" the purple emotion stammered helplessly.

Fear didn't bother waiting for an answer as Anger beat him to it.

"Well I hate to break it to you but Joy doesn't want to chat with you, because I do." Anger replied, his eyes letting out an evil glare.

Fear shook heavily as his nerves failed to stay hidden.

"You see string bean ever since Courage came she has made significant improvements to Riley, boosting her confidence, expanding friendship island and not to mention fulfilling tasks that we all know you and me could never carry out."

Fear's trembling only got worse as the red emotion continued, now in a much harsher tone.

"So why did you go and ruin it!" Anger spat before snarling the rest of his rant.

"If you hadn't kept interfering then Riley would have stayed the happy, confident courageous girl she once was, but oh no you had to go stick your nose in it! Look around you fool, this is what you have done to her, you and your dumb accusations caused this mess, the grey islands, the low self-esteem, all of it!"

Fear was close to tears as he listened and believed what the red emotion had been angrily telling him, but this time he had the right to be angry, even Joy would have been angry if she had wanted to speak to him.

But Anger hadn't finished.

"So now you caused this friggin mess, what you going to do about it!" Anger snapped immediately, stepping closer to the whimpering purple emotion who stepped twice the amount of steps back.

"Answer me!" Anger bellowed then hastily adding, "or are you too scared to face up to what you've caused?" he mocked furiously.

With his breathing getting heavier by the minute Fear had no choice but to run away to the furthest corner of Confidence island, hoping that he would be safe there.

In headquarters, Joy was rushing around trying to find the two male emotions who should have reported to the console more than five minutes ago.

"Joy were nearly at the rink Sadness stated, walking up to Joy with concern written all over her face.

"But they should be here" Joy replied, concern having taken over her facial features too.

"Maybe they are in their rooms" Courage suggested as Disgust added, "we will go check them" before walking into each room without any luck of finding either emotion.

"Oh, this is bad" Sadness moaned, walking up to the console just as Riley had opened the doors to the girls changing room. But what she had walked into wasn't pleasant.

"You know Riley's been acting a bit strange lately," one girl said.

"Ugh, why should we care when she doesn't even care for the team's reputation another girl scolded.

"Yeah, what she did last week was lame" the first girl replied, rolling her eyes in irritation.

"I think she should just be kicked off the team altogether." Riley recognised that voice as belonging to Shelly Jackson.

No longer able to suffer any more insults, Riley slammed the changing room door that she had previously been using as a spy tool and ran out of the rink, tears glistening in her eyes as one rolled down her cheek. She disgustedly wiped it away.

Joy and Courage didn't move nor speak as they watched Sadness and Disgust fight over the controls, not noticing the impact it was having on Confidence island.

Unfortunately in long term memory the two male emotions did as they both felt the uncomfortable crumbling sound of the island disintegrating beneath their feet. All of a sudden the crumbling sound turned into something more severe as a loud cracking sound emerged from the crumbling island.

In their rush to escape from the memory dump, Anger was the first one off the island, only having to make one jump to succeed in his mission. Fear on the other hand wasn't so lucky, attempting to run off the island it unexpectedly tilted downwards before losing it's grip and quickly falling to its destiny, along with the purple emotion scrabbling and clinging to the end of it ,screaming until he was greeted to the harsh landing, knocking him out cold.

Once the commotion was over, all Anger could do was look down at where the island had previously been. He then resolved to running back to headquarters deciding not to tell a soul where Fear was.

Courage Joy and Disgust who since the fight had reluctantly let Sadness take control paced up and down waiting for the two male emotions to return.

"Listen," Courage said as she heard stomping from another room, before the other emotions could question her the pale emotion opened the door to reveal Anger staring back up at her.

"Anger where have you been?" Joy exclaimed, grabbing the red emotions arm as if she was demanding an answer there and then.

When Anger didn't respond Courage took over the interrogation.

"Where's Fear?" Courage asked bluntly, her yellow eyes glaring right into Anger's ruby red ones.

"He's in his room, trembling under his bed I just checked" Anger lied.

Disgust rolled her eyes at his pathetic excuse for a lie.

Courage took one step closer to Anger who didn't budge.

"He's in his room is he?"

"Yes," Anger replied.

Courage sighed, "well then would you mind explaining to me why Fear wasn't there when me and Disgust checked his room less than a minute ago?" the pale emotion questioned sternly.

"He's a fast one, I'll give him that" Anger responded almost casually. However, Courage didn't seem impressed.

"Tell me the truth Anger, where is Fear?" Courage asked again but with less patience. The red emotion tried to walk away from her but Disgust, Sadness and Joy blocked his path so he was trapped between the four female emotions.

"Okay, okay, look he's somewhere in long term memory!" Anger shouted out, pushing Sadness out the way as he stomped off onto the pink sofa.

"Where?" Joy asked suspiciously,

 _I was afraid they were going to ask that_ Anger thought to himself before grumbling something none of the emotions could understand.

"Care to say that again?" Courage demanded crossly, leaving no room for protests or arguments.

Eventually, Anger had to give in. "Alright, he went to the memory dump!"

The female emotions gasped in horror. "How did he get there!" Courage shrieked, pulling at her blonde hair to calm herself down.

Anger looked down at the floor the mumbling out, "I confronted him just like you asked."

Joy along with the others turned to Courage for an explanation which she was more than able to provide.

"Anger when I told you to talk to him for me, pushing him into the memory dump wasn't what I had in mind, especially as I specifically said no violence!" Courage shouted out.

"I didn't push him, all I did was merely intimidate him!" Anger roared in response, no longer able to keep his cool.

"He must have fallen with Confidence island!" Sadness cried, catching everyone's attention.

While Joy and Disgust spoke to Sadness Courage walked over to the screen where Riley was sat on the swings at her nearest park, not actually swinging.

"I should never have trusted you" Courage hissed towards Anger.

Anger chuckled scornfully. "We as you said maybe you should have sorted this yourself!"

Yeah, no kidding!" Courage retorted angrily, now refusing to look at the red emotion.

Courage was about to leave the red emotion to grumble to himself when suddenly she felt her knees buckle and her legs go numb before collapsing to the ground in pain.

"COURAGE!" they all screamed at the same time as they vividly saw her fall to the ground.

Courage whimpered in distress. "Ow…. J- Joy!" the pale emotion gasped as she revealed a patch of grey forming on her chest that began to cover the bottom part of her legs.

Courage screamed out in pain once more before looking down at the grey particles that slowly but surely began to swallow up her entire legs .


	9. Faith over fear

**Hello, dear readers now as you know in the last chapter I did say that I was going to update Little miracles, however, I have been having trouble with chapter seven as I don't feel confident posting it. BUT I will post it as soon as I feel its right or if its the best I can do.**

 **Enough of that, enjoy!**

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Slowly the purple figure of an emotion began to rise from his unconscious state. Rubbing his back as a sharp pain travelled through him, he clumsily struggled to get into a comfortable sitting position. Looking around him he was greeted to the dark, cold atmosphere of the darkest area of Riley's mind. Behind him he could briefly see what was left of confidence island crumble away in front of his very own eyes, sending a harsh shiver down his spine until he could no longer bear the sight of the former island.

As if by instinct Fear curled himself up into the tightest ball he could, unsure whether it was for body warmth or comfort. But whatever the reason may have been didn't matter as the gesture did nothing for him. Instead, he began to whimper as if it was the only thing he could provide for himself.

Looking up at the jaw-dropping distance from the edge of long term memory to the lumpy ground covered with disintegrating memories, he began to shake as in a matter of seconds his mind began to fill with all sorts of disturbing thoughts. Trying to grab his thoughts together Fear miserably admitted defeat as he let himself give in and think each thought through, loathing what each and every thought ended in.

Sighing in despair the purple emotion was tempted to relieve himself from the stinging sensation of the liquid currently forming in his eyes, for the second time he tried curling himself up in a ball to ease the pain he was desperately trying to control. However, the urge to let out his inner emotions overwhelmed him as tears began trickling from his sorrowful eyes down to his purple cheeks.

Within his moment of sadness, he heard a faint rustle of paper from his left-hand side. Having figured out where the noise was coming from Fear fumbled inside his trouser pocket, revealing a scrunched up piece of paper in the palm of his hand. Cautiously opening it up he found it was one of many pages from his notebook that he always carried with him for safekeeping, only, this time, it was far from safe. Realising that it was the only page left of the disfigured notebook, he clutched it to his chest before staring at his own words.

 _But I won't be fooled into believing her fake charm, nor will I fall for her pathetic attempts towards her pretend concern for Riley. I will expose this monster for who she truly is!_

Trembling as he reread his exact words from that very day which triggered all the changes, the purple emotion crumpled the page within his palm before faintly whispering to himself,

" _Oh who was I kidding, the only thing I managed to expose was how much of a failure I am!"_

Slowly blinking to acknowledge what he had just said he traced his thumb over one sentence, in particular, his earlier trembling increasing as one teardrop splashed onto the page, marking his sorrow.

 _But I won't be fooled._ Was all he read of the traced sentence before weakly admitting to himself,

" _I was the fool…"_ Fear trailed off at his last words as all the emotion he had tried to gain control of tumbled out, leaving the purple emotion to release the overwhelming feeling of despair in the out and open.

All of a sudden the wish to keep his sadness concealed betrayed him as a gut wrenching sob began to echo through the atmosphere, only making Fear cry harder. Then before he knew it a few more sobs along with loud gasps for air had made their way from the purple emotions lips. Fear felt his shoulders shake and another sobbing sound rip out of his throat, the distraught feeling of being helpless sinking into his mind.

Leaning back the purple emotion was welcomed to more gasps for air as well as the urge to let more tears loose, as the tingling feeling of liquid returned to his eyes. The couple of tears that had managed to escape were left there to roll down his cheeks, as he prepared himself to try and unsuccessfully pull himself together.

"They wouldn't want me back even if I begged them" Fear whispered in defeat,showing no effort to get up and fight for himself. Bowing his head down as if preparing to give up altogether.

"Well not with that attitude you won't!"

Fear could have sworn he'd actually jumped out of his skin as he heard a stern voice he didn't recognise.

Cautiously turning around he was greeted by the sight of a snow-white figure stood behind him with her arms folded. The female figure had long wavy white hair which tickled her back as she walked, she had silver eyes sparkling with determination to match with her delicate facial features. To add to her appearance small particles of white glitter followed her as she paced towards Fear, her pure white glow gently lighting up the atmosphere. Looking down towards her arms she held a white stick decorated with silver gems, with a matching head accessory carefully placed on her forehead. Her long, white flowing strap dress glided across the floor as she approached the purple emotion.

As Fear struggled to pull himself together he stammered out a, "wha- who are y-you.. Are you an em- emot-tion?"

The pure white figure slowly shook her head.

"I am not an emotion, I'm a state of mind" was the short explanation the purple emotion received.

Fear shook as he continued to question her. "So if you're a state of m-mind then what are you doing down h-here?"

"I fell with confidence island."

Fear eyes widened at her answer, a shadow of guilt replacing his sorrow for that very moment.

Before he could stammer out an apology the white figure silenced him with her facial expression.

"I felt the pain as Riley's confidence fell, not only that but I also felt **your** pain."

Fear's heart skipped a beat. "Y-you felt my pain?" the purple emotion repeated, unsure whether to feel shocked or relieved that someone finally understood him.

Having been lost for words the white figure took it as a signal to continued speaking.

"And more. You see when the island fell, so did her faith in the dream to become a professional hockey player. Not only that but did she also lose faith in her determination but also in herself."

"What do you mean by _losing faith in herself_?" Fear questioned, mimicking quotation marks with his fingers.

"Well think of it this way, how much faith do you have in Courage?" the white figure responded, causing the purple emotion to shiver at the mention of her name.

"I erm… I …" Fear murmured as he struggled to come up with an answer. So instead the white figure answered it for him.

"Well, judging by what has happened so far I would be confident in saying none at all."

Fear gasped in response, a mixture of discomfort and fascination at how she seemed to be able to read his mind when he was unsure of himself.

Embarrassed that he couldn't find the courage to speak for himself he timidly nodded at her, hoping she would take that for an answer.

"So you see the amount or in this case, lack of faith you have in Courage is the same as Riley's lack of faith in herself."

"Oh." Fear whispered, scrubbing at his eyes as a little tear drop rolled down his cheek.

Then a confused expression appeared on the fragile emotions face.

"This Faith? Is it okay to assume that Faith is you?"

The white figure nodded her approval as if it was an obvious statement to make.

"So er… Faith", the purple emotion trembled as he spoke softly towards the white figure.

"I just don't understand why you have picked me out off all emotions to talk to."

Fear broke eye contact as he bowed his head down, waiting for an explanation as to why she was even considering to spend her time with such a feeble emotion, such as himself.

"Because **you** are the one I have faith in to put this right." Faith said.

Fear raised an eyebrow in response.

Ignoring his gesture Faith gracefully walked over to the timid emotion as she calmly explained her reason.

"Fear you may not believe this now but **you are** the only one who can fix this, you just don't know it yet."

"How?" Fear questioned, which went unanswered as Faith continued to talk.

"Well let's go back to the beginning shall we?" Faith didn't give the purple emotion the chance to protest, knowing that he would only try to wriggle away from his unknown duty.

"So I understand that you had a new arrival in headquarters a few weeks ago, and since then things have become rather... Difficult for you."

Fear nodded weakly, unable to speak for himself.

"However, I think it's safe to say that your effort to make her feel welcome was rather a poor one." Faith said while turning her head to give the purple emotion a stern look.

Fear looked horrified at her accusation. "I… I did try to make her welcome! She just barged her way to the console and took over. Besides she is the opposite of me, so how is it possible for us to get along!" Fear wailed, flapping his arms in distress.

"Ah, well that's where you're wrong. Faith interjected before adding, "courage is not the opposite of fear, but rather the acquired the ability to move beyond fear."

The purple emotion hesitated. "Sorry, I- I don't understand."

Faith sighed. "Fear, Courage is here to help, not to harm you."

"Some kind of help she was" Fear muttered viciously.

"Uh! None of that negativity, you must remain positive no matter the situation."

Fear raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "No offence but I don't see how anything positive can come out of a situation like this." The purple emotion blurted out bluntly.

"Then perhaps you need some incentive." Faith offered, her silver eyes twinkling when letting out her last word.

Then before he could acknowledge what was going on, Faith took the timid purple emotions hand and sat him down on top of a mountain of gloomy memories.

Faith cleared her throat before beginning her speech. "I remember when Riley first moved to San Francisco and to put it lightly it really shook her up."

"I know, but what has this got to do with now?" Fear questioned, only to be silenced by Faith.

"As I was saying, during those difficult times we can both say that Joy was affected the most." Faith added . Fear nodded in agreement.

"But, in order for those effects to take place, she had to well… learn the hard way."

The purple emotion silently questioned her, now realising that it wasn't the time for talking.

Faith continued to talk softly. "There's no easy way to say this , but Joy took a tumble down here and she did the most unbelievable thing."

The thin emotion began to shake from the impact of Faith's scary words. "What did she do?" Fear asked gently, unsure whether he did want to know after all.

Faith sighed sympathetically. "She cried Fear." was all she could say, and for the purple emotion that's all she needed to say.

"Joy? The one and only Joy… cried?" Fear whispered as if he was questioning an order.

Faith nodded in response.

Neither of the two spoke for a few minutes, the shock alone proved too much for the purple emotion as he slouched into himself, causing a few memories to roll off the top of the mountain.

"Just like you Joy had lost her faith in pretty much everything, including herself. But once she had learned what the true value of Sadness was, she got back up onto her feet and made all the effort that was required of her to not only fix Riley but to let Sadness know she was just as valued as any other emotion."

Faith finished her last words with a stern look directed towards Fear, who looked as if he was in a world of his own.

Faith cleared her throat rather suddenly to get the purple emotions attention. Having successfully done that she carefully added, "so if Joy could bring herself to realise the errors of her ways then so can you."

Fear looked down to his feet guiltily. Now ashamed of how badly he had treated Courage, who despite the uneasy relationship between the two had tried to make amends. But what had he done?

He'd mucked it up.

But even worse and more importantly, he had no way of apologising or even remotely being able to apologise for what he had done.

Fear sighed in misery as he carefully slipped off the memory mountin, the earlier feelings of sorrow drastically returning to him.

However, this time, Faith wasn't going to watch him bury himself away.

Instead, the pure white figure called out towards the pain stricken purple emotion, "so is that it? Just give up."

Fear sharply turned himself around to face Faith who had a mysterious look on her face.

"No! I would never betray Riley like that…" Fear trailed off as the memory of himself trying to quit a year or so ago returned to haunt him. Luckily for him, Faith had soon snapped him out of thinking about such memories.

"Well then, look around you Fear! You must come up with a plan to get yourself back up to headquarters."

Fear tilted his head along with raising an eyebrow. All he could see was darkness, it was at times like these when he envied Joy's optimism.

"But there's nothing here that could get me back up there, _well nothing that wouldn't cause me a great deal of pain and suffering_." The second part of his sentence was mumbled under his breath, which Faith had no trouble hearing.

"Unfortunately for all of us, sometimes we must go through pain to feel the gain." Faith said firmly, refusing to take any nonsense.

Fear trembled at the thought, "but it's dark in here, besides I have faith in the fact that anything along the lines of dangerous could happen!" the purple emotion exclaimed frantically, a rush of panic building up inside of him.

Faith tutted at his level of negativity. "Luckily for you, I believe that Faith is seeing the light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness."

Then all of a sudden Faith brought her white stick to life, gently tapping it onto a single memory ball . Soon turning it into a glowing white figure that Fear could have sworn nearly blinded him, as he covered his face to block out the intensely bright light.

* * *

Meanwhile, at headquarters, the grey particles which had stopped at her legs were now progressing onto her chest, as did the pain that came with it.

Courage moaned and shifted her position as the grey particles continued to grow stronger.

"What's happening?" Sadness wailed, her blue eyes fixed on the parts of Courage that had been taken over by the miserable grey colouring.

"I believe I'm fading" the half grey emotion declared weakly, just about able to make eye contact with the blue emotion.

"Joy, what are we going to do, mom and dad will be mad if they find out about Riley missing hockey practise!" Disgust exclaimed towards the yellow emotion, who was far from happy.

"I'm sorry Disgust but to be honest , I just don't know" Joy admitted defeatedly. Her blue eyes the portrait of lost.

"Maybe we should just confess and tell them what's been going on" Sadness suggested quietly, hiding behind her white jumper.

Before Disgust could protest something along the lines of Riley shouldn't have to go calling to mom and dad every time they had a problem, Courage sharply interrupted.

"She's right you know, if we tell them about our issues there support could be the cure to our loss of confidence" Courage explained in between hisses of pain.

"Okay Gang, let's do this!" Joy cheered as positively as possible before unexpectedly getting lightly tapped on the shoulder.

"Maybe Sadness should deal with this" Courage suggested.

Joy turned her head towards Sadness, knowing that if anyone was able to help Riley get through something complex, then Sadness was the only suitable emotion for the job.

"You're right!" Joy informed confidently before adding, "Sadness it's up to you."

As soon as Riley made her way through the front door to her house, her parents were straight there to question their daughter.

"Riley where have you been?" Jill asked with concern, her brown eyes looking straight at Riley's misery-stricken blue ones.

"We had a call from coach Evans, he said something about you not turning up to hockey practise," Bill informed with just as much concern, even if he didn't show it as much.

Riley remained unresponsive, not bothering to make an effort to explain herself as she didn't even know what she had truly done to make those who once cared turn against her.

"Riley?" Jill asked again, her concern increasing at an alarming rate.

"Sweetheart, please tell us what's been going on, you can tell us anything" Bill assured her softly, sending a shivering sensation down Riley's back.

"Tell them," Courage whispered gently, her droopy eyes just about making their way onto the screen.

At that moment the console was invaded by a light blue colour glowing across it, as a blue hand pressed a button letting Riley reveal everything.

Slumping down onto the sofa with her parents closely beside her, she let it all out.

"Okay, a few days ago I made a stupid mistake by slipping over whilst trying to score for the team and making them lose. Then before I know it the whole team turned against me, including Sam."

Riley's parents were silent throughout the whole explanation.

"And now I'm the laughing stalk of the whole school, not to mention I'm the number one target of the hockey team, they have lost faith in me!" Riley wailed, tears now glistening in her eyes.

"Sorry," Sadness said apologetically, the guilt of nearly making Riley cry getting to her.

"Hey, " Joy soothed before patting the blue emotions shoulder and adding, "you do what you have to do."

"This is what Riley needs" Disgust agreed gently.

All Courage could do was slowly nod as it became more difficult for her to move.

Then soon enough a couple of tears were rolling down Riley's cheeks, just before both parents wrapped their arms around her for a group hug.

Throughout the comforting hug, Courage smiled contently to herself, the feeling of solace bringing joy to her soul or as much as her pain-stricken body could let loose.

"Good job Sadness" Joy praised quietly, embracing the moment.

Once they broke the hug Riley then added, "I'm supposed to lead my team to victory now that I've been volunteered to be the team captain, but I just don't think I can." Riley admitted helplessly.

Both her parents gave her sympathetic looks.

"You know something monkey? You shouldn't have to give up on your dream just because you made one mistake, that's how we learn." Bill began.

"Your father's right Riley, no matter what they say just remember that we both have faith in you and your ability to become a champion hockey player, just believe in yourself and do your best. We can't ask for any more than that." Jill added, making a small smile slip from Riley's lips.

"We will talk to coach Evans and tell him you weren't feeling well or something,daughters" Bill said, transforming his daughter's little smile into a full on beam.

"Thanks mom, thanks dad," Riley said gratefully as she left the sofa before making her way upstairs to do her homework.

"We love you!" Jill and Bill chorused as Riley left the room.

Once Riley had settled down to do her history homework, Joy , Sadness and Disgust all turned their heads towards Courage, who now had the grey colour all the way up to the bottom half of her chest.

"It's expanding!" Sadness exclaimed before adding, "oh no, this is bad we can fix this right?" The blue emotion questioned towards Joy.

Joy jumped at her sudden question. "I er…" Joy hesitated as she struggled to come up with a positive answer.

Just then sudden squeaking sound filled headquarters atmosphere as Courage held a hand to the side of her chest, as she screamed out from the impact of the pain.

"I hate to say this , but it's getting worse" Disgust stated as she turned to glare at the red emotion, who was currently stood near his raging red bedroom door.

Truth be told Anger had distanced himself from all the drama, but not because it was drama. If he had to be honest with himself he had felt a tingle of guilt prickle his soul, especially since he was more than aware of what was going on with Courage. That alone made him feel like the headquarters traitor.

Anger grumbled as he continued to hide himself away from reality.

As for the female emotions, they were frantically trying without much success to come up with a plan to save Courage, before the gloomy grey grabbed its chance to declare its victory.

* * *

When the blinding brightness of the light eventually faded, Fear was left trembling for a few seconds before being unravelled by Faith, who encouraged him to look up.

Doing as he was told Fear cringed as his eyes met up with the nauseating height of the memory tower Faith had built, his buggy eyes widening as a whirlwind of thoughts whizzed through his mind.

"Uh, wh-what's that?" Fear stuttered nervously, Faith chuckled slightly before answering him.

"It is a ladder made entirely out of fading memories" Faith explained kindly, her silver eyes twinkling in delight.

Before Fear could question her motives Faith answered them for him as she proudly added, "now all you have to do is climb it."

Fear could have fainted there and then on the spot.

 _Climb up it? CLIMB UP THAT! She must be mad, I can't climb that as I could think of at least forty reasons why to be afraid right now!_ Fear thought to himself in terror, looking away from the horribly long row of memories in fright.

"I can't climb that," Fear finally said, feeling slightly better that he could now stand up for himself.

Faith however, wasn't going to take no for an answer. No matter what it took she would get that purple emotion up there and back to where he belongs.

Faith's facial expression soon took a look of disappointment as she firmly asked, "can't or won't?"

The white figure didn't wait for an answer as she pointed towards the tower and instructed the timid emotion beside her to get up there.

Fear couldn't find the courage to push his one of many fears to the back of his mind, instead he stayed frozen on the spot he stood on as he reiced a gentle nudge from Faith.

She then whispered, "even when the road ahead seems uncertain, you should use that moment to trust your inner courage that's screaming to get out."

Somehow that did encourage the purple emotion a little, then before he knew it he felt himself being pushed towards the tower.

 _Right I'm going up._ Was the purple emotions short thought as he began to climb the tower with difficulty.

At first he was actually doing well, unfortunately as he got close to becoming halfway up the tower he felt himself slipping. Daring to look under his foot he saw that one of the memories he foot was stood in was gradually fading away, until it had completely crumbled to dust. Sending Fear flying across the dump, with a lot of memories falling on top of him.

Poking his head through the mess of memories Fear yelled out, "I can't believe you made me climb that thing, that tower tumbling down like that could have easily got me an injury!"

"No, it tumbled down because you lost faith in yourself," the white figure said, correcting him from his grave error.

"Your faith is disappearing due to nerves, but that's not the only thing that's disappearing."

Faith turned her back to Fear for a moment before revealing a crystal ball, which she carefully placed into the palms of her hands before gliding her hands down the ball, a shifting image invading the crystal ball.

The image soon revealed headquarters that seemed to be running normally. Until he was greeted to the sound of distressed squeaking, as the ball showed the once confident creamy emotion now almost lying lifelessly in agony.

"Courage" Fear whispered as his buggy purple eyes became watery.

"She's disappearing Fear, I can sense her raging amounts of suffering which only you can put a stop to."

At that moment the watery sensation in his eyes was brutally blinked back as determination filled his facial features, his cowardly ways having been temporarily forgotten.

"Don't worry Courage, I'm coming!" Fear firmly shouted as he raced up to the newly built memory tower, with no hesitations or second thoughts.

Faith smiled to herself as she watched the purple emotion quickly climb up the tower, her pride in him heavily showing as she gave him her support.

"Just keep going, you'll be there in no time!" Faith called when noticing that he had less than a quarter of the way to go before he was able to go back to headquarters.

Storming through the memory tower Fear felt the huge satisfaction of pride race through him. That was until he reached the last few memories that lead to the very end of the tower, it was then he began to panic along with all the earlier senses of achievement having slipped away.

Sweta began to gather on his purple forehead along with the increasing amounts of trembling and whimpering.

"Fear, listen to me!" Was the call he heard from Faith who he now needed more than ever.

"I am , I am !" Fear shrieked, his shaking becoming worse as he doubted himself.

"Don't talk, just do as I say!" Faith called out to the shivering purple emotion.

"I will!" Fear managed to whimper out, still clutching to the memories that currently supported him.

"Don't say you will , just show me that you will, don't promise me anything, just prove to me that you will do anything that is required of you!"

Suddenly, without warning, Fear gritted his teeth and climbed up two more memory balls before tightening his grip as he realised his was hanging on to the very last one that decided his fate.

"Lean forwards!" was the muffled call from the white figure. Absorbing her words Fear squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned forwards, swinging his feet over to the edge of the ground of long term memory.

As the last of the memories from the tower Faith had built for him fell back into the memory dump, Fear let out a massive breath of relief as he managed to grip onto the side to pull himself up to a standing position.

"Well I must say, I'm quite impressed," Faith said, now standing opposite Fear who jumped at her sudden appearance. Her hair bouncing against her back as it shared her profound joy.

Fear giggled sheepishly. "I have to admit that I do feel good for doing that." The purple emotion blushed when Faith chuckled in response.

She then pleasurably added, "and that my friend was courage!"

Fear's smile feel for a second as he acknowledged how great it felt to be courageous.

"Now you understand the importance of courage?" Faith asked, earning herself a silent nod from Fear.

"Thank you Faith, for everything!" Fear said awkwardly, lifting his head up to look at the white figure who returned his smile with one of her own.

As Fear turned around to take Faith with him to the other emotions the white figure took his hand and gently said, "remember life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving."

Unsure of what she was trying to get across with that sentence, Fear turned around to see that Faith had vanished.

"I… I'll try… Faith," Fear stammered out as he began his quest to get back up to headquarters.


	10. Pluck up the courage

**Hello, readers just to say I am really sorry I haven't been updating regularly, life kind of took over for a while. Anyway I'm back and I have many stories to write! Not just for this fandom but for others too.**

 **Anyway, enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

As that very evening came to a beginning all the emotions except Anger were crowded over Courage, who's grey particles had covered most of her chest overnight. Leaving only her two hands and her face left with her natural, pale creamy colour.

"We need to fix this," Joy said with determination, even if she had already used up most of her reserved positive vibes.

"Like what Joy, we've tried everything" Disgust moaned in response, tossing her hair to the side as a sign of her built up irritation.

"Well, not everything," said a weak voice from the corner.

The three other female emotions turned around to face the fading pale emotion, confusion displayed on their facial expressions.

"There is … someone else who can provide the support we need" Courage said, her voice breaking a little throughout her small sentence.

"Who?" Sadness asked in a small voice, hiding behind her white jumper while the others continued to stare at Courage.

Courage took a while to respond as the vicious lash of pain travelled through her veins as the dull, grey particles continued to spread over the remaining part of her chest.

When she did answer it came out as a simple squeaky gasp ,"K-ka- Katrina."

"Katrina!" Disgust exclaimed in horror before hastily adding, "we can't ask her, we only have the minuscule amounts of what's left of our reputation to think of here."

"Disgust," Courage began weakly before grabbing the limited opportunity to reclaim her voice.

"Our reputation is irrelevant right now, sometimes we need to forget about our issues and give up some time for other people's." Courage explained earning everyone's, including Disgusts approval.

"But we shouted at her, that's sad" Sadness stated as the angry memory replayed itself towards the spotlight. The echoes of Riley's yelling filling the atmosphere as each emotion cringed as the memory which seemed to last forever, finally came to an end.

"Courage is right guys, we have no other choice" Joy said as she walked up to the console with determination. However, her rush of confidence soon plummeted.

"Joy?" Sadness questioned as she saw the yellow emotion stood on the spot in silence.

"Uh, whats up with you?" Disgust joined in.

Having successfully gained the yellow emotions attention, she said in response to their questions, "uh I'm not sure how to go about this…"

Joy hesitated for a second, before it dawned on her what or in this case who was required for the job.

"Courage we need you" was all Joy offered as an order. Courage slowly looked up at the star as if she was mad.

"Forgive me for saying this but I can barely reach down to scratch my left leg, let alone all the way up to the console."

"Then we will help you" Joy responded quicker than usual, causing everyone's attention to once again drift towards her.

"Too right we will!" Anger exclaimed as he approached the others for the first time since Fear's disappearance.

"Oh yeah, as you did such a great job of it last time" Disgust retorted sarcastically, displaying her well-known eye roll.

Anger glared at the green emotion as furious thoughts entered his mind. But before it could escalate any further Courage held up a frail hand and practically whispered,

"Now isn't the time for this" was all she could say, just before letting out a body heaving, strangled cough.

"Come on gang we have to do this quickly as we can!" Joy demanded as she gestured for the others to help her roll Courage over to the left-hand side of the console, placing her finger on a button as Joy took charge of the remaining buttons and levers, with Sadness beside her.

Disgust and Anger both stood in silence as they let the three female emotions do their jobs, without any interruptions.

At first, Riley was hesitant to going out just an hour after the hockey fiasco, this soon changed as she felt her determination to do the right thing overpower her inner fear.

Carefully and cautiously Riley made her way out of the house just after leaving a brief note to her parents regarding to where she had gone.

"This is it gang, we have twenty minutes tops so we must find her!" Joy called out confidently.

However, as Riley kept on walking without a real clue of which house was Katrina's, her frustration grew a little more each time she got the wrong house.

"This is ridiculous!" Anger snapped.

"Let's face it, Joy, we have no clue where she lives" Disgust added unhelpfully, earning an irritated sigh from the yellow emotion.

"Guys we can't give up now, we're really close I can feel it!" Joy replied in her usual positive tone, even if it was slightly acted out.

"I knew we should have listened to Katrina when she told us the day before her sleep over" Sadness whined, hiding her head behind her jumper once more.

"Oh yeah, you know? The one we didn't turn up to" Anger spat, a hint of guilt secretly entering his mind.

"Hang on, that was your idea to make up some lame excuse because we didn't want to go" Disgust angrily responded towards the red emotion, her green eyes glaring into Anger's ruby red ones.

"You didn't say no" Anger mumbled in a dark tone.

Fiercely interrupting the off topic conversation Courage managed to spit out a, "look all of that is irrelevant! All we need to do is gain the confidence to ask someone if they know where she lives."

Pressing the button as hard as she was able to Courage leant over towards the console in agony as she tried her absolute hardest to maintain her position until she could no longer hold it due to the vicious stabbing pain travelling through her body and mind.

Just then Riley's eye caught the sight of an elderly woman walking towards her, she didn't look up at the woman straight away but she soon found herself asking, "excuse me do you know where Katrina Williams lives?"

The elderly woman gave her a sweet smile. "Oh course dearie, she is my granddaughter after all."

Riley's eyes lit up at her surprisingly good fortune.

"Follow me, dear, my name's Susan, I'm so thrilled that Katrina's made a friend!" the woman said as she gestured Riley to walk behind her as she lead her over to a red door which displayed Katrina's home.

Unlocking the front door Susan called out, "Katrina darling a friend is here to see you!"

Katrina didn't make a move.

"I'm sorry sweetie what's your name?" The woman asked gently , whispering so Katrina didn't hear.

"Riley Andersen," Riley admitted, guilt rushing through her veins.

"Maybe we should just go" Sadness suggested, frightened of what could happen next.

"Who made you the new Fear?" Disgust questioned sarcastically.

"It's Riley!" Susan called out for the second time which distracted the emotions. , This time proving to be a to success at luring Katrina out from her room. However, her face looked anything but welcoming.

"Hi," Riley said, making an effort to be nice.

"Hey," Katrina replied bluntly, luckily for both the girls her grandmother interrupted.

"Why don't we let Riley inside and you can have a little chat with her" Susan kindly suggested, Katrina only nodded in response.

Once officially inside the Williams household Riley timidly sat on the sofa beside Katrina, just before Susan came around the corner and offered cookies to the two girls. Neither girl refused her offer.

While munching on a cookie Katrina bluntly asked, "look get to the point, why are you here?

Riley sighed as she explained, "I know I haven't been that nice to you lately but-"

She was cut off with Katrina's sharp interruption.

"Riley no offence but when have you ever been nice to me!" Katrina spat, her blue eyes the portrait of fed up.

Riley sighed guiltily, as all the memories of her either shouting at or whispering about Katrina sprung to mind.

"I'm really am sorry, I've just been having a hard time lately and I guess I'm not used to being the social reject."

"Welcome to my world" Katrina harshly spat as she suddenly turned to face the guilt-ridden Riley Andersen.

Riley looked up, raising her eyebrow at her sudden remark.

"What do you mean by that?" Riley asked more firmly than she intended to.

Katrina rolled her eyes in frustration before explaining herself.

"Riley all my life I have been the one to drag along the social reject title on my shoulders, and more. I have been mocked, whispered about, felt abandoned, I've had it all, so none of this is new to me."

Katrina sighed as she carried on with her rant.

"But when life takes a turn for the worse, that's when the magic happens," Katrina said sarcastically before adding,

"I try to make the effort to be nice to my so called friends, even though I know it's a total waste of time. But what do I get in return? I either get yelled out, used as a punch bag to have their anger taken out on me, and I take it all because I don't want to feel abandoned… again."

Riley looked up at Katrina who didn't look back.

Katrina then stood up and walked over to the window that sent a faint flash of street lights gleaming through the glass.

"Every single person I have ever known to be the last friend in the queue has either treated me like trash or suddenly left without any reason."

Katrina awkwardly cleared her throat.

"Even my own parents deserted me" Katrina admitted in a whisper.

Riley emotions let out a gasp of horror.

"I couldn't imagine life without mom and dad" Joy sadly stated.

Riley sighed guiltily before saying, "I'm really sorry , I didn't think my behaviour would affect you that badly."

She then added, "but despite my horrible attitude towards you I hope we can be friends again."

Katrina took a minute to consider her offer.

"You say that now but what if it doesn't work out and things go back to where they were yesterday? I'm sorry Riley but I can't risk that chance, just forgets I exist everyone else does."

"No!" Riley almost yelled before rapidly calming herself down. "Katrina I may never say this but I value and need your support, besides your the only one I can truly trust now."

What about Sam?" Katrina questioned emotionlessly.

"She ditched me" Riley responded helplessly.

Katrina's facial expression softened.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise," Katrina said sympathetically before kindly adding,

"You know what, don't let her dumb theories overrule the support of your true friends and family" Katrina smiled as she reassured Riley through her tough times.

"Thanks" Riley responded softly as a smile of her own crept across her face.

"Your starting to sound like my parents" Riley added as she giggled quietly, the two girls then exchanged smiles as if it was their silent way of saying friends again.

* * *

Meanwhile far from the outside of headquarters Fear stood near the recall tube which had been cracked in the middle, the purple emotion huffed as his hopes of getting back were smashed.

"No, that was my only way back" Fear whimpered to himself before a rush of sudden panic dramatically entered him.

"I mustn't panic, I mustn't panic" Fear repeated to himself more than a few times before his words eventually sank in, his earlier shaking came to an end soon afterwards.

Looking up at where the front of headquarters stood, Fear let out a small sigh as he struggled to come up with a plan B.

The purple emotions eyes then darted across to the long term memory lanes, in hope of being able to get back quickly. On the other hand , looking at just how huge the memory lanes actually were all he could bring himself to do was gawp silently at the never-ending distance.

"No that would take too long," Fear mumbled to himself, before considering that it was by far the safest option to take.

The thin emotion groaned as he was about to face his fate and get himself into a maze of multicoloured memory balls against his own will.

However, he was soon dragged away from his terror as a sudden white glow shone across the ground he stood on, pointing towards a long thin metal pole that travelled across family island to the front of headquarters.

Gingerly stepping over to where the glow had guided him towards, the purple emotions eyes widened at how daunting and potentially dangerous it looked. Sweat began to trickle down his forehead as he continued to stare at his only possible way back.

Fear shuddered as he took a step closer towards the pole that seemed to go on for eternity.

"This is ludicrous, climbing a tower of memory balls is one thing but going across this…" Fear trailed off as he found himself unable to finish his sentence.

Suddenly he felt an unexplained nudge towards his arm as if it was signalling him to get across the pole. Fear gave it one last look before heavily gulping and making an attempt to getting onto it.

During that moment the pole made an alarming creaking sound, then having found out that it didn't mean anything the purple emotion could have kicked himself for wasting valuable time.

 _Come on you spineless coward, you always go on about needing to protect Riley from all danger and now your opportunity to prove that has come along and what are you doing? Hiding behind the chance like the big baby you are!_ The harsh voice inside his head spat viciously.

Now deciding that he'd had enough of wimping out, he put on a face of determination as he lowered himself down onto the pole, refusing to look down.

At first, he began to shiver as the stone cold air blew against his lavender coloured skin, he soon made himself stop by forcing back the obvious fear that haunted him.

"You can do this, just don't look down" Fear whimpered to himself while slowly making his way across the purple pole, so far doing a good job at holding back his instincts.

Although Fear had mentally promised himself not to look below his feet that dangled against the slim side of the pole, he couldn't help himself as his eyes darted towards the bottomless pit, leading to the dreaded memory dump.

"I've already ended up there once, I will not end up there again or at least I'll try not to" Fear whispered to himself, as he clutched what little part of the pole he could grab to steady himself as he shuffled himself across the thin metal trail.

It was a slow process, to begin with, but with every single move, he made he gradually became closer to his destination, despite his earlier discomfort of the whole idea.

Having now shuffled more than halfway, Fear felt a tiny sense of relief at the fact he had almost flawlessly accomplished his mission to save Courage along with the others.

"I'm coming Courage, just a few more shuffles to go, just hang in there," Fear said to himself out loud, the determination and confidence echoing through his voice.

As soon as he finished his sentence the purple emotion heard a loud creak from the bottom of the pole, instantly beginning to panic, Fear shook and whimpered from the terrifying impact of the scary experience.

 _Focus! Pull yourself together!_ The harsh voice inside the purple emotions head hissed as it made an unwanted return.

But even Fear couldn't deny that his conscious was helping him push his fear back when overcoming his sensitivity to unexpected occurrences, despite its slightly odd way of showing it.

"Slowly does it," Fear whispered to himself before suddenly exclaiming with more confidence, "wait a minute there's no time to be slow!"

Having let out the unexpected outburst, the purple emotion practically jumped into action as he continued to at a quicker pace tackle crossing the pole, hoping to avoid any more unnecessary delays.

Becoming closer towards the end of the tediously long crawling session, a tight squeezing sensation filled his stomach as if it was about to burst at any given moment.

 _"What if I'm too late, what if the others have already lost faith in themselves and me…"_

Fear trailed off at the last word of his sentence, before being drastically pulled back to reality as a memory of the events back down the memory dump forcefully replayed itself inside his mind.

The powerful image of Courage disintegrating to dust alone made the purple emotion automatically shiver in terror. Then without hesitation, he pushed his concerns to the back of his mind, as he continued to conquer the beginning of his mission to put what he had admittedly done wrong right.

* * *

The sounds of laughter filled the entire atmosphere of headquarters, on the other hand, the same couldn't be said for the emotions themselves.

"Why isn't it going away?" Disgust questioned as she pointed out that the grey particles invading Courage still continued to make their way up to her face.

Joy groaned loudly with frustration, her usual positive vibes and upbeat attitude clearly wearing thin.

"It's getting worse!" Sadness wailed as she burst into tears for the third time in the space of an hour.

"So… what do we do now Joy?" Disgust asked as she approached the worn out star.

It took a few seconds before Joy let out a rather loud, "I don't know guys, why does everyone think I know the solution to everything!"

Soon after that outburst, the other emotions remained shocked as Joy sank to the floor with tears shimmering in her eyes, the pressure of getting Courage back to normal clearing eating at her.

"Were sorry Joy," Sadness said sympathetically. The urge to add something to her sentence was tempting, however, at times like this, it was better to avoid complicating things further.

Joy looked up at the teardrop as she gave her a minuscule smile before softly sighing.

Having finished getting wrapped up in her own sorrow Joy glanced over to Courage, whose body had slightly shifted away from where the others had rolled her over in attempt to pluck up Riley's courage.

With Sadness now sat next to Joy, the remaining two emotions distanced themselves as Disgust stood by the console ,while Anger sat at least three spaces away from the now mostly grey emotion with only a hint of her natural pale skin tone left.

While most of the emotions were distracted by their own misery, Sadness on the other hand slowly got up to where the core memory table was placed. The thought of letting her blue hand hover around Courage's first memory was soon pushed away, as she vaguely remembered what had happened multiple times during the previous encounter with the core memories. Instead, she called the rest of the emotions to gather round the core memory table as if she and Joy had swapped roles for a pure second.

"Whats with the sudden group get together?" Disgust asked, folding her arms like a sulky teenager.

"The last thing we need is a pep talk" Anger added, her low gravelly voice making the teardrop feel slightly uncomfortable.

But it was Joy who came over without saying a single word.

"I need to tell you guys something" was all Sadness allowed herself to say before pointing towards the very first memory Courage had created.

The other emotions just stared at the teardrop blankly.

"Remember the day we met Courage?"

All the emotions nodded.

"It was also the day that Riley scored the only goal during the latest hockey match" Sadness responded.

"And now look at us," the green emotion mumbled darkly, Sadness did her best to ignore her comment.

"Only we didn't think we had the confidence to be able to score once Sam got injured, in fact Riley got scared just by thinking about the consequences."

This time, none of the other emotions made an effort of asking any questions, allowing Sadness to continue her talk.

"But when we put our head down and focused we suddenly felt this urge of confidence allowing us to score for the team, which we wouldn't have done if things had been different."

"And your point is?" Anger interrupted.

Sadness was about to reply when Joy got there first.

"What she's saying is that Fear and Courage must have created that memory together!"

Sadness nodded, grateful for how Joy had figured it out so quickly.

However, it didn't click with Disgust or Anger straight away.

"Uh, I hate the break this to you but if that's the case why did the memory only contain the colour of Courage?" Disgust asked, her eyebrow raised as if she was suspicious of Sadnesses theory.

The blue emotion felt her chest tighten from the impact of Disgusts question, as her instincts to hide behind her jumper became an almost automatic reaction. Although it was tempting, the blue emotion took it as an opportunity to say what she really thought of as an answer to her understandable question.

"Maybe they just didn't realise that they were both involved when the memory was made."

A kind warm feeling spread across Sadness as the motions who had questioned her before now began to understand what she was saying.

Having now got her point across Sadness along with the others turned their stares to Courage who was lying lifelessly on the floor, one hand sprawled out across the edge of Joy's door to her room, the other placed on her stomach where the grey particles had first appeared. Her facial expression radiating the definition of suffering, one look at how Courage was displayed told them that the once outgoing ,confident pale emotion was now weak and feeble.

But this only triggered another idea to Sadness.

"Guys, I know this may seem like a stupid question but why do you think this has happened so … suddenly?"

The blue emotion hesitated throughout the whole process of asking her question, unaware of how it got the other emotions thinking for themselves.

Joy was the first one to share her answer. "You know it's got me thinking…" however her sentence remained unfinished as she told Sadness to grab Fear's laptop and dictionary.

Disgust and Anger were both left with confusion marking their facial expressions until Joy along with Sadnesses help explained everything.

"Come here, look at this" Joy exclaimed as she gestured to the remaining two emotions to come over to her.

"It's a dictionary Joy," Disgust said unhelpfully.

"We know but look at what page he's left it on," Sadness said as she read out what the page displayed.

 _ **Courage is the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger or pain.**_

"Now look at the bottom half" Sadness instructed, the others made no hesitation to do what they were told.

 _ **Opposites or antonyms of courage- Cowardice, timid, weak, fear.**_

The emotions gasped as the sudden realisation hit them like a train.

"No wonder he didn't get on with Courage, he thought she was trying to replace him…" Joy trailed off as Disgust and Anger felt the same sorrow she did.

It took a while before anyone spoke.

"Well I don't think any of us can exactly cover ourselves in glory this week," Disgust said, placing an arm around the star whose glow seemed to have become a fainter shade of yellow.

Anger nodded his agreement while Sadness seemed to have remained silent. Until all of a sudden, it had all become clear once given some time to think the whole situation over.

"Joy, I think I may have figured out why this has happened!" Sadness shouted, her levels of confidence at its highest since the day Riley had lost hers.

"Riley can't appreciate the true feeling of happiness without me right?" The blue emotion asked her question specifically aimed at Joy.

The teardrop knew full well that her question didn't need answering.

"Then Riley can't be courageous without Fear!" Sadness called out just before Joy added in a quieter tone,

"Because without Fear, Courage is irrelevant."

Then without warning Joy rushed over to the large window that showed all Riley's personality islands, the yellow emotions sea like eyes scanned the area until the others heard her whisper,

"Fear where are you?"

* * *

Within the distance, the purple emotion heard his name being said, which for him was a sign that his fellow emotions needed him more than ever.

Fear took a deep breath as he pulled himself together to fulfil his purpose. However, he was stopped in his tracks when noticing the tiny space between the ground that leads to headquarters, and the disturbing gap which he couldn't stomach visiting for the second time in his life.

"Come on, believe in yourself, the team and Riley are depending on you," Fear said to himself quietly but forcefully at the same time.

The purple emotion closed his eyes and kept them squeezed shut as he scrambled towards his fate. Despite the thoughts of him being able to somehow fix things, he began to lose his grip, as he hands got sweaty from the impact of his mixed thoughts and feelings of the current situation.

Then just as suddenly the purple emotion was nearly driven to a panic attack as he felt himself slipping off the very edge of the ground that headquarters stood on. Although he now believed that this was the end, he was greeted to a very bright and as equally blinding white glow shone over him just before disappearing just as quickly. Then in a matter of seconds, a feeling of relief soon entered him as he realised he had made his way to the front of headquarters without ending up in any sort of danger.

"Who-hoo, yes I did it!" Fear cheered just as he noticed a recall tube that had been built there since Riley had settled in San Francisco.

Not wanting to waste another moment Fear climbed into the recall tube that sent him flying up into headquarters in a matter of seconds.

Having heard the noise of a recall tube Joy along with the others ran over to the centre of headquarters as they were greeted by the sight of Fear.

"Fear your here!" Joy cheered.

"Are you okay?" Sadness asked.

"Did you get back alright?" Disgust questioned anxiously.

Anger said nothing.

Fear ignored all three of them as he walked over to Courage whose eyes had drifted shut and her body resembling a cat in a deep sleep.

 _"What have I done?"_ Fear whimpered to himself as he stared at the grey particles that had now made their way to her face, her creamy colour having become a distant memory for him.

Fear fumbled with his words from the shock of the moment before finally being able to let out a squeaky question of,

"What am I going to do?"

As if on cue Sadness patted his shoulder, pointing towards the core memory that Fear had placed a purple streak onto.

Struggling to hold back tears of remorse Fear wiped a hand across his eyes before walking over to the core memory , gently grabbing hold of the purple part of the memory. He then walked over to where Courage was, softly placing the faded pale side of it within Courage's hand and the purple on his own.

The other emotions stood in silence as they hoped for the miracle of the plan working so Riley could return back to normal. Unfortunately, as they continued to wait they began to face the fact that they were too late, which meant they would be unable to save Courage.

Fear could feel more tears building up against the inside of his eyes as he too lost faith in himself. A single tear splashed out of his eye and onto Courage's dull grey arm while silently cursing at himself for being too slow, along with harsh thoughts circling around his mind of how he had cost Riley her confidence.

Slowly beginning to make his way from the limp form of an emotion, Fear sighed shakily as he took a walk of shameful misery to defeat. The other emotions gave him a look of sorrow as they too felt his pain.

The misery-stricken purple emotion remained wordless as he refused to look at the other emotions due to the distressing fear that he had let them down. In his mind he had, until he along with the others heard a sudden muffled question of,

 _"Fear?"_


	11. Heat of the moment

" _Fear?"_ was the muffled question from behind the purple emotions back.

All the other emotions soon followed his actions as they all snapped their heads around before frantically rushing over to Courage, who eyes were fluttering open which meant she struggled to get herself up onto her feet.

The pale emotions suffering was soon cut short as the grey particles that had previously invaded her body were now sliding down from her, revealing her natural creamy colour which sent a warm feeling down each emotions spine.

Courage gave the each and every emotion a look of confusion as she staggered to her feet with the help of Joy and Sadness.

"Wh-what's going on?" Courage slurred as she slowly regained the strength to walk and talk unassisted.

The whole of headquarters went painfully silent until Joy decided it was time she stepped up and took on the leading role.

Joy hesitated as she tried to retrieve her positive vibes before answering the pale emotions question.

"Well, we have just made up with Katrina…" Joy trailed off as she came to a halt before quickly adding, "which is a good thing because now she can support us during the hockey match next week!"

The yellow emotion finished off her sentence in her usually cheery tone, as she happily pressed a button that made Riley blurt out a similar sentence the star had a few seconds ago.

However, during the first happy sentence, Riley had heard herself say in a while, Katrina awkwardly cleared her throat which created a queasy feeling inside the purple emotions stomach.

"Uh, guys…" Fear said anxiously at the same time as Katrina nervously added, "Riley I hate to tell you but the match is tomorrow."

Having not been expected to be exposed to such a huge shock, Riley coughed and spluttered as the sudden news nearly made her choke on the cookie she had been nibbling since her arrival.

In headquarters, all the emotions gasped, except Sadness who hid behind her jumper.

"This isn't good, this can't be happening!" Was the trembled murmur that came from the back of headquarters, soon revealing that the murmur belonged to no other than Fear who trembled himself.

Before any of the others got a chance to have their say Katrina beat them to it by saying, "I only found out because Sam wrote a status about it on her facebook page… Besides, she wasn't that particularly nice about it when mentioning you."

"I know…. BUT you know what? I'm going to show them just what they have got themselves in for!" Riley exclaimed with confidence, a feeling that until now had been erased from existence.

However back in headquarters, the emotions were all stood near each other, except Courage who had found her way to the console, frantically pressing buttons as if to prove she was still able to help when necessary.

All eyes were on Courage as they watched her happily cheer and dance around the whole of headquarters, while trying to figure out what could have caused this sudden and quite frankly odd mood swing.

Joy, in particular, had witnessed most of the pale emotions strange explosion of words. However, she was soon to be snapped out of her thoughts when Courage cheerfully slapped Joys shoulders as she blurted out her rambled sentence of,

"Come on you lot, don't be scared! This is our chance to prove to the world what Riley Anderson is truly made of!"

Once letting go of the yellow emotions shoulder which ached from the tight grasp of her pale hands, Courage's already beady eyes went wider as an instant thought whizzed through her head.

Then within seconds Courage yelled out a high-pitched "Oh wow, I can really feel that rush of confidence running down my veins. And just think of how jealous Shelly and the others will be when Riley scores the winning goal for the team!"

Growing concerned for her creamy coloured friend, Joy stepped beside her and calmly explained that she had made her point. But despite this Courage carried on, having taken no apparent notice of the stars attempt to bring her back to her normal self.

Instead, Joy and the others were treated to another rambled sentence when Courage spun herself around to face the others, leaning her shoulder on Sadness to keep her balance as she excitedly exclaimed,

"In fact, I think it may even be safe to say Riley is now so positive about winning that-" Then without warning Courage cut herself off from her own sentence, a wide grin promptly making it's way onto her lips as she blurted out a rather loud, "hang on, I've totally forgotten about something!"

All the emotions hesitated for a moment , wondering while at the same time anxious of what Courage may have forgotten. However, it wasn't long before their question was given an answer, even if it did consist of a jumble of words.

Twirling around the other emotions like an out of control roundabout, Courage shrieked when practically screaming out, "seeing as Riley had her unlimited confidence back, confidence island should be back too!"

"Let's go check it out!" was the last of her speech as in no time at all Courage had rather quickly made her way towards the huge window, that displayed each and every island.

"No!" all the emotions called out at the same time just before realising that they were too late, as Courage already had her hands and face pressed against the window in search for Confidence island.

"Guys, where is it?" The pale emotion asked in a more disappointed, quieter volume, despite the fact she was still smiling.

An awkward silence invaded the atmosphere for a couple of minutes before one of them had to tactfully but at the same time, gently break the news to the currently eager pale emotion.

"Uh Courage" Disgust began, who soon found herself unable to finish off the rest of her much-required sentence.

Noticing that the green emotion was struggling, Anger and Joy both decided to step in and help out. But as it turned out, they too found it intensely difficult to find the right words for the job.

In the end, it was Sadness who came up with the words as she softly informed the pale emotion that Confidence island hadn't come back yet.

Managing to keep her smile visible, Courage who had calmed down a tiny bit asked in more or less the same tone as before, "what- what do you mean?"

Joy sighed as she for the second time tried to step in to help, this time, she was able to make her contribution useful as she also used a gentle voice when saying, "look Courage there is something about confidence island we need to tell you."

The pale emotion just stood lifelessly as if she already knew what Joy had to say.

Joy sighed as the unnecessary awkwardness of the whole situation started to eat at her. However, after forcing herself to swallow down her worries, the yellow emotion did eventually tell Courage that Confidence island wouldn't be making an appearance.

But having to explain why was something else entirely, which the yellow emotion just couldn't bring herself to say, as she was still in the process of understanding it herself.

Suddenly at that very moment was when the dreaded one worded question made it's way in the out and open.

"Why?" was the very question Courage asked that each emotion was desperate not to hear.

All the emotions sighed just as Disgust simply said, "the only way that we will ever gain confidence island back will be up to you and…"

The yellow emotion was interrupted yet again as Courage eagerly replied with,

"Of course, that's my job." Her grin from earlier returning at a slightly inappropriate time.

"But you're not going to be doing it alone," Anger bluntly said, showing no emotion in his voice.

Courage tilted her head in confusion. "What? What do you mean I'm not going to do it alone?" She then focused her gaze onto Joy before adding in a happier voice, "oh Joy why didn't you tell me you were in on this? After all, you're a brilliant role model towards the group!"

Joy let out a small smile of appreciation at the fact that Courage respected her enough to consider letting herself be guided by her just as the other emotions did. But this time, it wasn't going to be the case.

The star took a couple of steps towards Courage so she was stood right beside her as she gently told her , "I'm very flattered that you consider me as a good role model, but I have to tell you that I'm not the one for this job.

Courage's huge grin from earlier dramatically disappeared as the yellow emotions words sunk in. "Okay, Joy since it's not you, who is it?"

Since the beginning of the pale emotions mad moment, Fear had kept himself out of the whole conversation, until at that very moment when Disgust and Anger both dragged him towards Courage, silently pointing at him as if he was a criminal.

"Fear?" Courage mentally repeated to herself a couple of time before saying his name out loud.

"Yes" was all the green and red emotion could say. At this point, it was all up to Joy and Sadness to finish what they had started.

Clearing her throat Joy then said, "you need Fear in order for Riley to experience the true feeling of confidence."

"But were the opposite of each other, how can that possibly work?" Courage questioned suspiciously, causing Fear to quietly whimper even though he wasn't actively involved in the conversation.

All of a sudden, Courage found herself being shown the core memory that had Fear's purple streak placed on one-half of the ball. As all the emotions watched the memory play through the ball till the very end Joy took it as her opportunity to say,

"So you see, without Fear Riley can't be confident in herself or anything at all, so you and Fear have to put your differences aside and work…" The yellow emotion trailed off as she found herself stopping for no apparent reason.

"Together!" Sadness finished off, sending a warm feeling of relief down the other emotions veins.

The sudden realisation of what they needed to do in order to accomplish getting Confidence island back hit her like a runaway train. Opening and closing her mouth like a fish, she was unable to speak from the impact of the massive shock she had been the victim of.

As for Fear, circumstances weren't that much different.

 _Well talk about being in the heat of the moment,_ was all that came to mind when all eyes were suddenly on him. Amongst their stares most gave off genuine concern, while one or two were more along the lines of petrified. Fear gulped as the pressure soon grabbed its opportunity to get the better of him. The purple emotion then faced the floor in an attempt to hide his painfully obvious feeling of fear.

Meanwhile, Courage had been brave enough to take a look at Fear before she too copied his tactic of hiding the pain. On the other hand, she wanted to sort this out just as much as she knew Fear did, so, therefore, she had to be the one to put it right.

"Fear?" Was all she needed to say to grab the purple emotions attention, needless to say, it worked.

Courage remained silent for a minute before letting herself say what she needed to say.

"Ok, so I know this past couple of weeks haven't exactly been our greatest moments and I'm sure you feel the same way right?"

Fear nodded weakly, now slightly glancing up at the pale emotion.

"I know as well as you do that this needs to be sorted out, not just for our sakes but for Riley's too."

Courage didn't wait for an answer so instead she added, "so we need to leave the past in the past and get on with making sure that tomorrow's hockey match is a successful one."

Fear made himself look fully into Courage's yellow eyes as he sternly agreed to the pale emotions statement.

Courage then held out one of her pale hands signalling her wish to call a truce.

"For Riley." Was all she needed to say.

Fear reached his purple hand out to shake Courage's pale one, both emotions looking into each other's eyes as they shook hands in silence.

 _For Riley._

* * *

 **A/N- Thank you for all the support I have had throughout this story so far, you lot have been amazing! I am so sorry I have been updating my stories regularly as I have been asked to work more days now. However, I am now going to be trying my hardest to update Little miracles so please be patient with me.**


	12. Important info (Must read)

Hello, peeps, as you know Courageous hasn't had an update since August last year and if I'm honest I'm not proud of that at all. The reason why this occurred was because I went through a long term writer's block which wasn't nice as I really do enjoy writing. During this time I lost passion for a lot of stories including this one.

Anyway, what made matters worse was when I thought I lost the chapters I had been working on pacifically for the stories I hadn't finished. However, I did find the chapter 12 I had been working on for Courageous after thinking I had lost it (which drove me to discontinuing it) it turns out I miss placed it into an entirely different folder which I discovered this morning. I have no idea how or why this happened.

So Courageous WILL GET AN UPDATE especially now that I rewatched inside out and I'm gaining the interest and passion back for this story only. Once I finish this story I don't know if I will write anymore.

Plus college and a weekend job have yanked me away from writing for quite some time. Also, self-confidence issues played me up for a while.

I do hope this explanation informs you of what has been going on with me since August, I do apologize to all those who love and waited so patiently for an update, I really feel terrible about it :(

So what I want to say is Courageous will be updated ASAP and when it is, this notice will be deleted. Again I apologize and I hope I can put this right!


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